The Fate Of The World As The World Deserves
by InstantEntertainment
Summary: The Fate Of The World Will Be Such As The World Deserves" is the sequel to "Death Is Not The Worst That Can Happen To Men". With Devlin sent back to 2007, how will the previously changed future impact the past? Reviews are welcome.
1. Prologue: Prelude To War

Prologue: Prelude To War

Drip... Drip... Water drops fell from the faucet, ripples creased the smooth surface. A hot bath soothed her strained and raw nerves, her sore muscles. It was one of the very few luxuries Sarah Connor allowed herself. Used to a Spartan way of life, she denied herself so many things.  
She leaned back in the hot water, rested her head against the edge and looked at the ceiling. Moments like this, moments of almost complete silence, they were so very dear to her. Normally the house would be in turmoil, but now it was finally peaceful and quiet.  
Her thoughts wandered back to less stressed times. To the time she had been just a naïve student, working her way through college as a waitress. On the evening of May 13th, 1984, everything had changed. She had died as Sarah Jeanette Connor, college student and waitress, and had risen from the ashes as Sarah Connor, warrior-mom.  
A faint smile slowly curved the corners of her mouth upwards. There was still hope for the bleak future. Never would she forget the two days she had had with Kyle Reese. If they weren't running from the machine, he would tell her of his world. Of how her son would be the champion of mankind. She had been nothing like the woman she was today. His world, the future that awaited this world had scared her, feeding her need to change her son's destiny, to change the destiny of mankind.  
She could never stop thinking about what was lying ahead of them, what was behind them. Never peace of mind, always on high alert. Even now her Glock was within reach.

A strange swirling wind picked up on the almost deserted parking lot. Thunder rumbled in the distance but the sky was clear. Lightning suddenly appeared from out of nowhere. Its arcs spreading, growing in length until a silver metallic ball materialized with a ghostly howl. The ball dissolved into thin air, revealing a human form. A naked man sat on his heels with his knuckles pressed firmly against the floor.  
Slowly the man rose to stand up straight and take in his surroundings, the hot ground beneath his feet not bothering him. His attention was drawn to a young man exiting the building adjoining the parking lot.  
"Yes, yes, I know I'm late, honey," the young man said into his cell phone while he walked to his car. "But the boss wanted me to finish those financial prospects… Yeah, sure, I can pick something up on the home."  
Only now the man noticed the naked man: "Holy shit! Honey, I gotta hang," the man said quickly, ending the phone call abruptly. "Are you okay?"  
The naked man looked at him as if to size him up: "Were you robbed? Do you need a doctor?" He asked with a trembling voice.  
"No cops. No doctor," the naked man said slowly. "But I need your clothes."  
"You're kidding, right?" The young man asked with a nervous laugh.  
The naked man turned to him and he could see his face in the dim glow of the street lights. There was a scar that ran from his right eyebrow down to his cheekbone and another long scar across his left cheek. Despite the lack of any emotion in his face, there was something in his eyes that made him human.  
"Do I look like I am kidding?"

"Good morning, mom," John yawned upon entering the kitchen.  
"Morning, John," Sarah greeted her son while she flipped the pancakes.  
He scratched himself on the top of his head, took a plate from the counter and patiently waited for her to give him his breakfast.  
"In a hurry?" She smiled crookedly.  
"You promised to take us to the mall today, and I need new threads," he answered, shrugging his shoulders in a nonchalant manner.  
She nodded and turned her attention back to the pancakes.  
"And we need new hardware too," he added casually.  
"Of course, the world's nothing without the latest technology," she remarked sarcastically when Cameron entered the kitchen.  
"Shopping today?" Cameron asked before she sat down at the kitchen table.  
John yawned again, his arm started to hurt from holding out his plate: "Mom, don't you think the pancakes are done? Or overdone?"  
It was rare for his mother to mess up on the pancakes but she had been on edge since a few days. He didn't know his mother differently than on edge but this was extreme. Ultra-alert, reacting to each and every noise, ready to strike or leave whichever was a better choice.  
"We don't have to go to the mall, if you don't want to, mom," he offered, feeling grateful that he finally got his breakfast.  
He trudged to the kitchen table and sat down. The pancakes were a little burned but still edible. Cameron held out the maple syrup to him and he sent her a thankful smile.  
Sarah turned towards them a little and her smile reached her eyes: "I promised, didn't I?"


	2. Chapter 1: Welcome To Century

**Chapter 1: Welcome To Century**

"Are you okay, mom?" John asked her for the umpteenth time that morning.  
"I'm fine, John," Sarah sighed.  
She couldn't escape the feeling that they were being tailed, and usually she was right when she had that feeling. Whether it was the authorities breathing down their necks or another infiltrator sent back to kill her son. She had been on the run since 1984, living off of the grid as much as possible, like a ghost.  
Stopping for a moment, she surveyed the busy street. It didn't sit well with her that they were so in the open, so exposed. If Skynet were to strike now, the collateral damage would be extensive. She squinted when she noticed a tall, broad man across the street. Dressed in a white dress shirt and black slacks, he still seemed out of place, or better out of time. He had two big scars across his face and the way he leaned back in the shadows reminded her of Kyle.  
Was he another one? Was he a Resistance fighter? Or a Skynet infiltrator? Or was it just her mind taking her for a spin? Her right hand searched for the grip of the Beretta tucked in her waistband. Standard "Condition One", chambered, hammer cocked, with the safety on. Ready to be drawn and fired if the situation called for it.  
"Mom?" John nudged her.  
She looked at her son and faked a smile: "If you're gonna ask me if I'm okay again, I'm fine," she said quickly when he opened his mouth to say something.  
If he was from the future, like she thought he was, maybe Derek knew him? She looked back to where the strange man had been hiding so she could point him out to Derek but the man had disappeared from sight. Had she been paranoid?

Damnit, she had seen him! Unable to stop himself from looking at her, he had been careless and she had seen him. Not that it surprised him. She had been the one to teach him to scan the surroundings, know your way around and know the exits.  
He ran a hand through his hair in frustration and heaved a deeply annoyed sigh. Had he just jeopardized the mission? However seeing her, alive and well, it had caused his heart to be in great turmoil once again.  
When he had caught her looking at him, his heart had started to pound erratically in his chest, and he had wanted nothing more than scoop her up and kiss her. He smiled to himself; he could have done that and gotten himself quite the beating. Sarah Connor was not someone you should surprise like that. She didn't know him, and if he were to surprise her like that, he would have had to face some severe consequences.  
Hugging the wall of the small alley, hidden in the shadows, he kept an eye on the group about to enter Century City Shopping Center. He could not believe how reckless he had been. He might as well be holding up a sign with 'Kick me'. Suddenly his attention was drawn by a woman who had casually leaned against the wall while talking over her cell phone. The Connors had passed her by and she had looked at them with great interest. Now the woman was walking a few feet behind them.  
Metal! After 16 years of war against the machine he had learned himself to spot them. They were almost human but small things gave them away. He looked left, then right, then left again and crossed the busy street. It was a side-mission and a good way to find out how the time travel had affected him. Cameron could dispose of the threat, he was well aware of that, but he needed the practice.  
He looked up at the huge sign over the entrance of the mall: Century City Shopping Center. It sent icy cold shivers up and down his spine. He had been held prisoner here more times than he cared to remember. After pulling his sleeves down again, he took a deep breath and walked into the building. Just a few feet ahead of him was the woman tailing the Connor clan. Should he take her out now to limit to damage done now that he had blown it? However he could be mistaken: nine out of ten times he was right about the metal. What if the woman wasn't metal?  
He needed to wait until she would make a move. This place was so familiar to him and another shiver ran down his spine when he remembered his time in the U-section. Being an Undertaker, it had only stressed the lessons Sarah had taught him about the value of life. The needs of the living outweighed the needs of the dying; mercy kills considered humane.  
The Connor clan sat down at a table in one of the food courts and he watched as the woman passed them by. Had he really been mistaken when he had pegged her as metal? Now it was his turn to pass the Connors and the woman by, sitting down on a small bench to observe the surroundings and the situation.  
The woman stopped just a little past the food court and slowly turned 360 degrees as if she were looking for something or someone. He lowered his head and looked at his hands to keep her from identifying him if she were to be metal. Not that it would matter, because the moment she would make a move for his assignment he would have to take her out.  
For a while Skynet had thought that he had died at the Siege of IntelliTech Base, but then it had discovered he was still alive and stronger than ever before. Knowing it could not stop him, it had sent an update to all its infiltration units: unless the mission could be accomplished they were to abort their mission and try at a later time.

"That's odd," Derek frowned.  
"What's odd?" Sarah asked absently, smiling friendly at the waitress when she came to take their orders.  
"It's probably nothing," Derek answered slowly.  
"It's never nothing with you people," she grumbled annoyed. "You can be shot and still say it's nothing. So I'll ask again. What's odd?"  
She was jumpy enough already and didn't need Derek to add to it. If he said something was odd, she wanted to know what was odd. Had it been a mistake to go and celebrate the start of the summer holiday and the fact that John was now in his Junior year? She was beginning to think it was, but she had wanted her son to know what it meant to have some normalcy in his life, even if it meant that he was John Baum instead of John Connor  
"You look like you've seen a ghost," John quipped after he had given the waitress his order.  
"It's nothing," Derek said annoyed, looking at the people again. "Nothing for me, miss," he smiled friendly when the waitress asked him for his order.  
She noticed the look Derek sent at Cameron and it didn't bode well. What the hell was going on and why didn't anyone tell her what was going on?  
"We need to leave," Derek said firmly, rising to his feet all of a sudden. "It's not safe here."  
"We only just got here," John protested fiercely.  
Only then she noticed the broad, tall man she had seen across the street earlier approaching the entrance of the food court. But was it a man? He could easily pass for an infiltrator. Was he targeting the young woman? Or was he zeroing in on her son?  
"Cromartie?" She asked Derek.  
Derek shook his head: "No, worse."  
"We need to leave," Cameron repeated after Derek while she yanked John to his feet and shoved him in the opposite direction from where the young woman and her stalker were coming from.

Tyler followed the infiltrator silently as she zeroed in on her primary target. He watched as her hand reached back for the concealed weapon tucked in the waistband of her jeans. This was the prove he had been waiting for. The young woman was metal.  
His right hand locked firmly around her right forearm at which the woman whirled around quickly, taking a firm swing at him which he blocked with his left arm. He noticed the hesitation in her action when she scanned his face. Skynet's programming should keep her from attacking him. She tilted her head a little. She must have gotten her new mission order, he thought.  
"Hello," he chuckled amused while he pushed her away from him roughly.  
All the customers at the food court screamed upset and afraid as they tried to leave the scene of the fight as quickly as possible. The woman slammed into the counter, breaking everything on her path. Tables, chairs, nothing was safe. Quickly she got to her feet agin and reached for her handgun, never losing sight of her initial target.  
"Looking for this?" He asked smugly while he held up the gun before throwing it into the fountain next to the food court.  
It didn't surprise him that she ignored him and focused on her target again. Tunnel vision, something all infiltrators suffered from. Tables toppled, chairs were tossed aside as she cleared a path towards Sarah. A few big steps and he cut her off in the middle, sending her sliding over the floor after a rough push.  
Only now, he noticed, did Sarah wake up from her daze. From the corner of his eye he saw her turn on her heels and leave the food court. He hadn't expected her to help him, just like she would probably not have expected to be a target again.  
Without General Sarah Connor in the future, the Human Resistance would be weakened considerably, and he would have no reason to survive after the fall of IntelliTech Base. He needed to focus to keep his mind from wandering back to the time they had been more than just best friends. Seeing her like this, alive and well, it uncovered feelings he thought he had buried deep enough.  
The machine rose to its feet again and settled for its secondary target: the interfering factor of its mission. It sized him up, her eyes flashing red as new mission data entered her program again.  
"Lieutenant General Tyler Jess Devlin?" She asked mechanically.  
"The one and only," he grinned. "But you already identified me, darlin'."  
She remained silent and tilted her head a little. He knew that she was running an analysis to determine the outcome if she were to fight him.  
"I know you have had a mission priority change already, darlin'," He laughed while he kept a close eye on her. "So what option have you chosen? Kill me or retreat?"  
Again she remained quiet.  
"C'mon, darlin', don't keep me in suspense."  
Her eyes flashed red again and she began to back away.  
"Where are you going?" He asked darkly. "Ah, it's retreat. Too bad, 'cause it ain't gonna happen."  
He knew that the machines knew no fear and that what could be described as fear was called survival mode. Programmed to complete their mission any way possible, a survival mode was essential, just like reroute. Sometimes they go bad and nobody knows why. Well, almost nobody.  
He hated reroutes. It made the machine unpredictable. As long as it ran on its original power cell, reprogramming could be very successful but if the original power cell was removed or shut down and the tiny back-up power cell with the integrated chip was overlooked, things could get very ugly in a matter of seconds.


	3. Chapter 2: The Man With The Coltan Arm

**Chapter 2: The Man With The Coltan Arm**

"Can't you help him?" John asked as he opened the back door of the car and got in.  
"The Devil doesn't need any help, does he, Cameron?" Derek asked haughtily. "Tin cans like yourself would like to stay away from him as far as possible."  
"I don't experience fear," Cameron answered simply while she got in the passenger seat of the car.  
"No, but the very fact he exists messes with your programming, right?"  
"I have no recollection of it, but I am not afraid of him."  
"Well, I should be if I were you," Derek grinned darkly. "And you know exactly why."  
"Enlighten us," Sarah remarked, not making any attempt to hide her annoyance that she was kept out of the loop.  
"Not only is the Devil John's best programmer, his favorite pastime is taking out tin cans," Derek chuckled amused. "He absolutely does not fear the machine and attacking them unarmed is a sport for him. There's nothing that man doesn't know about those metal bastards."  
"I know," Cameron said coolly. "He reprogrammed me together with John. For that I cannot be scared of him."  
"What do you know about this Devlin? Aside from the obvious statistics," Sarah asked while she stuck the key in the ignition and turned it to start the car.  
"Not much. He and John will be best friends," Cameron shrugged. "John trusts him with his life."  
"So why is he here?"  
"He had no longer any purpose in the future after Skynet was destroyed. His base had fallen. His friends had died."  
"Did he," Sarah paused for a moment to choose the right words while she let the car pull out of the parking lot. "Did he have a family?"  
Cameron turned to face Sarah and answered: "No, not in the traditional sense."  
Sarah rolled her eyes. How come every question she ever asked was met with an evasive answer. Couldn't it just be straight and clear for once? A slumbering headache made its presence known and she rubbed her forehead softly with her index and middle finger.  
"Explain?" She sighed as she looked at Derek in the rearview mirror. "Not in the traditional sense? What does that mean?"  
"Whispers in the tunnel said that the fool even was married at some point, but only the crew at IntelliTech Base knew if it as true. If he was, chances are that she died when IT Base fell," Derek added to the conversation. "John knew too."  
Deep creases furrowed Sarah's brow and she bit the inside of her lower lip as she tried to put the new pieces of the puzzle about this Devlin character into the place. Her mind was rushing and the headache worsened. Why had future John sent back yet another lone warrior? And why had she been the target again? So many questions, so very few answers.  
Maybe this Tyler Devlin could give her the answers she so desperately sought. However in that case the biggest question of them all was: would they see him again? If not, she would be stuck with even more questions than ever before.  
Her instincts told her that it was only a question of time before he would reappear in their lives. Suddenly she remembered that fateful night when she had gone out to catch a movie. Despite the fact that two Sarah Connors had been murdered already, and the news reports were already mentioning it as the Phonebook Killer, she had felt the need to leave the apartment she had shared with Ginger.  
She had been walking down Pico Boulevard after grabbing a bite to eat, unable to escape the feeling she was being followed. The man in the trench coat hiding in the shadows of the dark alley, a few feet behind her when she had passed the mouth of the alley. She had fled into the first public place she had come across, a disco called Tech Noir, to call the police.  
So many years ago and she still remembered it as if it had happened only yesterday. She glanced into the rearview mirror and smiled faintly when she saw her son staring out the window.  
The man she had thought to be the killer had been her savior and he had left her a son.

"In other local news today, Century City Shopping Center became the scene of an altercation between a man and a woman. According to witness' statements the man attacked the woman for no apparent reason. The two left the scene before the mall's security and the police arrived and are still at large," the news anchor droned while the TV-screen showed a blown-up photo of a scruffy looking man from one of the security cameras at the mall.  
"I was having a coffee, just minding my own business, waiting for my wife, you know, when hell broke loose," an elderly man said into the camera. "This huge man, he just attacked that woman."  
"It was chaos. They were both so unbelievably strong," a young woman with her daughter on her arm stated. "They completely tore up the place."  
"Damages to the food court are considerable and will take up to a week to restore. In a fountain near the entrance the police found a handgun," the news anchor added as a voice-over as footage of the man and woman fighting was shown.  
"If it had been used in the fight, the chances would have been that innocents would have been injured or killed. By finding the gun, we now have reason that the man is armed and dangerous," a spokeswoman of the Los Angeles Police Department said.

Derek snorted with contempt while he switched off the TV: "The Devil doesn't need guns to be armed and dangerous, but what the fuck do they know?"  
Sarah raised an eyebrow and sent him a curious look: "What do you mean?"  
"The Lieutenant General is one of them. He's a goddamn cyborg."  
"Cameron said that he is human and-"  
"Cameron said that he is human. Cameron said! Cameron says a lot, but she doesn't know shit!" He interrupted her furiously. "He has an arm of coltan which he tested on my little brother!"  
"Kyle?" She asked in a whisper.  
"Yeah, the Devil choke slammed him and then tried to crush his windpipe," he seethed.  
"He tried to kill Kyle?"  
"It took my entire squad to get that half-breed to let go of my brother. Trying to kill Kyle bought the Devil a nice stay in solitary, and what did John do about it? Nothing, zilch, nada."  
"Why did he try to kill Kyle?"  
He tapped against the side of his head: "It's the nano's. They made him do it. Convenient excuse, isn't it?"  
"Nano's?"  
"Some experimental drug," he answered. "Turns humans into merciless tin cans who then turn on their own."

John looked up when there was a knock on his door. As always he had not been granted a moment's rest. Always someone coming to check in on him, coming to talk to him.  
He hadn't been the target today. Had he been the only one to see that the danger had not been from that tall man but from the woman he had been following? It struck him as odd that his mother had been the target once again. Last time she had been Skynet's primary target had been when he had not even been born yet. The future him had sent back a lone and brave warrior to protect her because she would give birth to him. That lone and brave warrior had been his father, Kyle Reese. Was history repeating itself?  
He had seen the second of hesitation on the scarred man's face when he had looked at John's mother, like he recognized her. Had the future him pulled another stunt like with Kyle Reese?  
Again there was a knock on his door, this time a little louder. Again he preferred not to call enter. The door swung open and Cameron walked in.  
"You remained quiet," she stated upon his questioning glare.  
"Maybe I don't want the company?" He sneered.  
"Oh," she said, turning to leave. "Thank you for explaining."  
He rolled his eyes: she was incorrigible when it came to using normal speech. He had told her numerous times already to use different phrases than the standard 'thank you for explaining'.  
"Cameron?" He asked softly.  
"Yes, John?"  
"What do you know about Devlin?"  
"Not more than what I told you, Sarah and Derek in the car," she answered.  
"Would you lie about it? I mean, would you withhold information?"  
She nodded: "If my mission requires it."  
"And does your mission require it now?"  
"Yes."  
"So you know more about him?" He decided to interrogate her.  
"Yes."  
"And you won't tell me?"  
"No."  
"And if I ordered you to tell me, would you tell me?"  
"No."  
"Awesome," he grumbled with annoyance.

There were easier ways to obtain thermite, Tyler knew that but after that little scuffle earlier the police was most certainly looking for him, so he had to make it himself. That's why he had chosen this abandoned aluminium storage warehouse. Aluminium powder everywhere, plus all the rust he had turned into rust powder. The only ingredient hard to obtain had been magnesium but he had found it at a drug store and had actually paid for it.  
Not a day back and he already had a few crimes to his name: robbery, assault and battery, destruction of property, grand theft auto. Not that he cared much for the laws of this time. They were useless in the battle against Skynet.  
He looked at the makeshift container in which the steel skeleton lay and smiled pleased with himself. The T-867 had not been a really big challenge, but it had given him the chance to examine how the time travel had affected him. The nanoattrioids had not stirred their ugly little heads when he had attacked the T-867. Maybe because he hadn't worked up a sweat when disabling the killing machine.  
Should he remove its chip and keep it? So he could read it later when he would have access to the right computer hardware? Would it tell him something he didn't already know? He knew that it wouldn't. Its mission directives had become clear the moment he had seen it target his assignment.  
He ran a hand through his hair and heaved a deeply sad sigh. It nearly killed him to think of her as an assignment when she had been so much more to him, when he had been so much more to her. However he needed to keep his distance and shield his heart.  
She had seen him and it had hurt him more than he had ever been able to imagine that she had not recognized him. It was extremely difficult to keep remembering that she had died and this Sarah was not the Sarah he had known.  
He picked up the piece of cloth he had drenched in gasoline, searched the pockets of his pants for the lighter and lit it before tossing it into the container. The thermite ignited, flames reaching and grasping, eerily screeching as the metal shrivelled up and melted away.  
Slowly he trudged towards the wall and sat down with his back against so he could watch the fire die. Feeling tired suddenly he rested his head on his arms and closed his eyes.


	4. Chapter 3: Ignorance Is The Night

**Caution:** _May contain what could be considered explicit content. Reader discretion is highly advised. Mature readers only._

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* * *

_**Chapter 3: Ignorance Is The Night Of The Mind**

He walked down the corridors of the tunnel complex, sometimes smiling friendly at the civs who would greet him heartily. They treated him like a war hero, but he wasn't. He had sent thousands to their certain death by now, trying to keep the body count as low as possible. One time more successful than another.  
A boy, no older than eight, jumped from a nice and pretended to shoot him. He grinned, made his hand into a gun and fired back. With all the drama an eight year old could muster the little boy played to be dying. War knew no glory, no victors.  
Only a month ago he had been promoted to Lieutenant General, but rank held no meaning to him. He treated all who lived on the base equally. Refs and civs, all humans were equal.  
Suddenly a young girl came running towards him, threw her arms around his waist and hugged him tightly. He laughed warmly: "Good morning to you too, Petra."  
"G'Morning, Mister Tyler," the girl grinned sheepishly, resting her head against his chest.  
He knew that she had a silly crush on him, if only because last week she had announced to Sarah and him that she would marry him someday. Petra's story was one out of so many. Born into the ruins of the old world, saved from a destroyed pocket, orphaned by the machines.  
Connor had been a good sport about it and had played along, at least until the girl was gone. After that the familiar routine of arguing over the big age gap had been started again. Somehow it amazed him that after ten years she could still find a reason to start an argument about it. Three years of marriage and still she feared that he would find someone better than her.  
Surely she had to know by now that her heart would always be safe with him and that he would never ever betray her or her trust. He would lay down his life for her in a heartbeat.  
"It's been a long night, Petra," he said friendly while he carefully removed her arms from around his middle. "I need to get some rest," he added.  
"Did you kill a lot of those scary robots?" She asked, trying to hide the disappointment from her voice but he had heard it.  
"Yeah, I got a few," he replied while he sent her a warm smile.  
Maybe he was encouraging her in her crush on him, but she was just a kid in a dark world looking for someone to care for. Who was he to deny her that childhood fantasy?  
"Do I need to worry?" A woman's voice asked behind him.  
He whirled around and took a good look at the woman who always carried herself as if she were a good foot taller than she actually was. The Sarah Connor. She was a remarkable woman and a formidable fighter. And she was his. A grin spread from ear-to-ear when he caught the intense look in her right eye.  
He scratched himself behind his left ear, earning a chuckle from her. The dark color of her wavy hair had started to fade into dark gray shades. She had lost her left eye and part of her hearing on the left in an explosion at a servo-drone factory, and yet she was still the most gorgeous woman he had ever known. But his attraction to her wasn't just a physical one. They connected on so many levels. Their wounded souls finding shelter with each other. Their battered bodies nurturing each other back to health. Their shielded hearts only finding refuge with each other.  
The way she stood looking at him, her arms crossed in a casual way, a faint slow smile gracing her lips, it caused him to shift his weight from one leg to another until the impact was barely noticeable. However the curiously raised eyebrow told him she had seen it, just like she had anticipated.  
She knew his body, his reactions and used that knowledge to her full advantage. In a few minutes, upon entering their room, she would ambush him, yank his clothes off and have him. In a few minutes she would be kissing his ear, his neck before biting his shoulder while he would move tenderly back and forth between her thighs. In a few minutes this dark world would seize to exist, replaced by an own little world where only the two of them mattered.

She sat up with a start, gasping for breath, bathing in cold sweat. As always she had slipped away in tormented dreams, some worse than others. Even in sleep, her soul knew no rest. The machine was always there, lurking in the darkest shadows.  
Unable to remember the last time she had had a good dream. It had been in another lifetime. It had been another Sarah Connor. Even when Kyle would appear to her in her dreams, they were foreboding, like the one she'd had during the day she had wanted to break out of Pescadero. Kyle had told her that their son had been the target then. He had appeared to her only a few hours after she had signed their son away.  
It had been the biggest mistake of her life. She had been beaten numb, been shocked into conditioned behaviour, been drugged up so her mind was clouded and her thoughts foggy. It was not a justification. It could never make up for the fact that she had signed that piece of paper and that she had given up every right as his mother. What had she been thinking?  
She knew that she had not been thinking, that those few seconds of her life had not been hers. She should have fought back. She should have resisted. She could have swallowed the meds and not taken them.  
Orderlies Douglas and Jeffrey. They had been on to her, applying new tactics to get her to really swallow the medication. In the first few months of her stay in Pescadero she had learned ways and tricks to avoid taking her medication and getting away with it. As her resistance against her stay and the way she was treated grew and grew, the orderlies' resolve to break her increased as well.

There was a loud knock on the backdoor, and she grabbed her Beretta from under her pillow. Always a light sleeper, always aware of the things happening around her. Slowly she got up and silently made her way to the backdoor.  
She could see a large form dressed in dark, ragged clothes through the small windows. After removing the safety she pressed herself against the wall to hide somewhat in the shadows. Her hand closed around the door knob, her other hand firmly gripped the Beretta.  
It was that Devlin character, but she didn't know if he had good intentions or not. Derek had told her earlier that he was one of them, a cyborg. An arm of coltan, some experimental drug that could make him turn on the people he was fighting this war for. Nevertheless just before he attacked the machine zeroing in on her, she had seen something in his eyes. Not just kindness but something else too: a deep hurt, similar to what she had seen in Kyle's eyes. There had been a hint of recognition on his part, so he must have known her at one point in his life.  
Slowly she turned the doorknob and opened the door on a crack. Before she could ask him what he wanted, he pushed the door open with his right hand and she stumbled back at the force. Had she made a mistake? She aimed for his head and he brought his left arm up.  
"What do you want?" She barked, gently squeezing the trigger.  
He kept quiet and looked at her, at the gun she was holding. One step towards her. She squeezed the trigger a little more: "Stay back!"  
Another step towards her. Her heart became lodged in her throat when she realized that he was just as intimidating as the infiltrators she had encountered in her life. Only he was human. By now she was squeezing the trigger so much that the gun went off. Metal against metal, a loud howl that chilled her blood. She hadn't meant to pull the trigger and it came as a relief that she had only shot him in the forearm.  
He did another step closer, and another until her gun was pressing against his chest. Yet he had to say one word. Her eyes trailed up until they met his.  
"Don't!" She growled through gritted teeth, stopping back to stretch her arm as to widen the distance between them again.  
The gun went flying from her hand when he pushed it away with his left hand. It startled her for a moment but then she regained her senses and pulled back for a right hook on the jaw. He shook his head a little after her right fist connected with the left side of his jaw, as if he only had to shake it off. A crooked smile formed on his face and he bridged the three feet left between them, burying his fingers in her hair, pulling her close.  
She pressed her hands firmly against his chest and tried to push him away but he leaned down and took her breath away with a searing kiss. She tried to resist but soon found herself responding to his urgent kisses. Her hands slid from the back of his head where she had instinctively placed them to his chest again, ripping his shirt open so she could slide her hands over his skin. The tips of her fingers met ridge after ridge of scar after scar.  
Lower her hands slid until they reached the prominent bulge in his slacks. His breath hitched in his chest when she softly ran a hand over it and she smiled faintly before pushing him with his back against the wall.  
She looked at him again: there was something feral about him that drew more than her attention. The scars across his face, the pained look in his eyes, he was a soldier, just like her. This was the point of no return: either she backed away or gave into raw animal lust. It had been many months since her last lover. Actually counting the time jump it was well over eight years since she had been with anyone.  
His kisses had been so full of promise but the cold hard reality in the form of Derek's voice had started to push its way back into her thoughts again: "He has an arm of coltan which he tested on my little brother! ... Yeah, the Devil choke slammed him and then tried to crush his windpipe." This man was a danger to anyone and he had tried to kill John's father, the man she had loved.  
She shook her head and tried to clear her thoughts, but he didn't make it easy on her when he moved towards her again. Hesitantly she backed away, managing to get into the kitchen. He wasn't going to back up. Were those nano's driving him? Or was there more to this surprise attack?  
Finally she reached the counters, opened up a drawer and pulled out another Beretta. He sighed when she pointed it at him: "Don't come any closer!" She muttered, feeling the tears sting in her eyes.  
"I won't," he whispered with a hint of defeat in his voice.  
The look of pain in his eyes practically floored her. The only other time she had seen so much pain in a man's eyes had been when she had talked to Kyle near the window, when Kyle had confessed his love for her.  
"I'm sorry," he mumbled before he turned away and left the house in a hurry.  
Now she turned and placed the gun on the counter, while she tried to grasp what had just happened. Was that why he was here? Because he loved her? Why did John keep sending back those poor souls? Her heart began to pound erratically; he wasn't here because she was targeted as the mother of another determining leader in the future, was he? He wasn't here to father another child with her, was he? In that case he could really forget ever getting close to her.  
She rubbed her forehead with her left hand. A headache was building slowly, one that could not be cured with aspirin.

"What's up with your mom?" Derek asked while he nudged his nephew in the ribs.  
John looked at his mother and saw a most familiar sight: a sad and distant look accompanied by misted over eyes: "She misses my dad."  
"She does?"  
"I don't think a day has gone by that she hasn't thought about him," John grumbled annoyed. "Charley came closest to making her forget about dad for a while."  
"Did he now?"  
"But not very successful. As soon as he'd left for work, she'd change back to the brooding woman I know as my mom."  
"Did she… I mean," Derek paused.  
"She shacked up with any man who could teach me something useful, mostly about weaponry and warfare, at least if that's what you wanted to ask," John said with a mouth full of pancake.  
"How did you know I wanted to ask about that?" Derek asked utterly confused.  
"A gut feeling." John heaved a deep sigh before taking a sip of his orange juice.  
"And no one ever came close to my little brother?" Derek asked with some amusement in his voice.  
"Nah," John shook his head. "I doubt someone ever will. Sometimes I think she stayed with Charley for those six months because she wanted a father figure for me. After Uncle Bob it became obvious to her that I missed a man's influence on my life and she tried to settle down. Charley's a good guy but in the end I think she would've destroyed him."  
"She would kill him?" Cameron asked, tilting her head a little.  
"Figuratively speaking yes," John answered, annoyed with her listening in on the conversation between him and his uncle. "She needs a man who is willing to fight her. Charley would never have done that."  
"Fight her?" Cameron paused. "You mean?"  
"Yes, fight her," John repeated.  
"So Derek?"  
"Hey, she's definitely not my type," Derek protested fiercely. "More my brother's."  
"And Devlin?" Cameron inquired.  
"You would know more about it than I do," Derek glared at Cameron while he rose to his feet to leave the breakfast table.


	5. Chapter 4: Sir Isaac Newton's Apple Tree

**Chapter 4: Sir Isaac Newton's Apple Tree?**

It had not been Kyle she had been thinking about while she had prepared breakfast. It had been the nightly visitor who had been on her mind ever she had gotten up at the crack of dawn. First she had tried to get rid of the tension in her body by doing her morning exercise, even doubling the amount had not helped.  
So many questions, so very few answers. It could all have been a dream if not for the bloodstained long-sleeved T-shirt lying on the bed only a few inches away from her. It had all been too real; he had come to her house and had kissed her like there would be no tomorrow. She hated these conflicting feelings. On the one hand she felt some sort of hate for him. He had tried to kill Kyle, and the other hand she felt a deep sorrow that future John had sent back yet another tormented soul who loved her.  
He had shown no fear at gunpoint. In fact she wondered if it had just driven him more. Although his moves had been rough, they had possessed some kind of tenderness as well. She closed her eyes and remembered his face. The scar that ran down from his eyebrow to his cheekbone, the scar across his left cheek, kind eyes that held so much hurt.  
Before she realized she was doing it she brought her left index and middle finger up to her mouth and ran them over her lips. She could feel his lips pressed against hers in a kiss that spoke of despair and passion.  
Her eyes snapped open and she shook her head. Now was not the time to lose herself in silly non-sense like that. She was a soldier, not some naïve college student. She had devoted her life to keeping her son safe and alive so he would lead the Human Resistance into battle against Skynet. Sacrifices had to be made.  
Why hadn't Cameron come to see what was going on when she had accidentally fired her gun? Why had Cameron tilted her head and looked at her as if she were crazy when she had asked her about it? It could have been Cromartie or any other terminator sent back to kill her son or her. Suddenly she remembered Cameron saying "He reprogrammed me together with John". Was this all part of the bigger plan?  
The future, dark and looming, was always there. If not for the machines sent back to kill whoever needed to be killed, then for the Resistance fighters sent back to protect the targeted. Why was she the target again? The same questions she had had last night after he had left re-entered her thoughts: Why was he here? Did he love her just like Kyle had? Was he here to father another child with her? Was she destined to be the mother of the future again?  
It felt like history was repeating itself, and just like last night thinking about it gave her a headache. At one time in her life she had tried to figure it all out. Time lines, time shifts, time loops, and it had almost driven her crazy.  
Her memory drifted back to those two days with Kyle. She had been naïve and ignorant. Coming from poverty, trying to work her way through college, and then it had turned out that she had been destined for greater things. That she was going to be the mother of the future. She could still see the admiration in Kyle's eyes when he had sat against the wall of the tunnel while she had tried to deny her destiny. She had been a nothing, a nobody. She had been Sarah Jeanette Connor.  
Now she choose to be a nothing, a nobody because it would keep her son safe. She had learned so much the past seventeen years of her life and yet it felt like she hadn't learned enough. She had changed so much and yet it felt like she hadn't changed enough.  
From the moment John had been born she had been preparing him for the future, but what if the future shifted and changed? How could she ever prepare him well enough for that?  
She sighed and picked up the T-shirt. He had let out an eerie howl like a wounded beast after she shot him, but it hadn't kept him back. She looked at the bloodstains. He had liked it rough as if he needed to feed of the pain to feel alive. Slowly she got to her feet and went to throw the T-shirt in the trash.

He ran a hand through his tousled hair in frustration. What the fuck had he been thinking? It could be considered a miracle that she didn't take his head off.  
"Talk about surprise," he grumbled to himself while he looked at his bandaged left forearm.  
Yet after he had woken up from his dreams of the past, he had felt this incredible urge to see her. It should have stayed with staying at a safe distance and just watching her. But at one point he could not stand it any longer, so he had left the rooftop and had knocked on the backdoor.  
What the fuck had he been thinking? She didn't know him, even if he knew her. What the fuck had he been thinking? It was not her who had loved him, whom he had loved.  
But she would be, and it wouldn't be him.  
He thought about himself in this time, about how he had argued with his father, about how one night had changed everything. Never had he forgotten that the machine had come that night. TJ Devlin, only a few days away from discovering that all the wonderful, fantastic tales his mother had told him held a bitter truth.  
The other Tyler, he had confronted him even more with the terrible future ahead. Now it was his turn to become the other Tyler, and as much as he hated to admit it, he had become more like the other Tyler than he had ever wanted. Maybe he was even worse? He had defeated death, lived twice after dying. The Devil incarnate, he was no hero but a monster, forged in the heat of battle, formed and defined by war, death and destruction.  
Slowly he scratched his chin, the two-day stubble itching and annoying. But he wasn't here to shave his stubble beard, he was here to keep an eye on the Connors. The 24-hours-zone was approaching fast.  
He wondered, now that the increasing warmth of the day made him drowsy, if this was a repetition of history or if this was a new timeline. He hadn't known much about the other Tyler when he had been just TJ and yet now he was the other Tyler. He should know him by now and yet he didn't know the first thing about him. Only that he had been tormented by an unrequited love.  
At least in that way the future had differed for him. He had known his love and he had gotten the experience it, unlike the other Tyler.  
He crossed his arms and made himself comfortable against the makeshift pillow he had made out of his pea coat. The shades of the leaves should give him shelter from the warmth of the day. In his own time, back home, the weather system was very different. After the nuclear winter, it had changed dramatically. Winters were extremely cold and summers were moderate.  
It couldn't hurt to close his eyes for a few seconds.

The room was only lit by the light coming from three small computer screens, but she could still make out his hulking form bent over the desk. A faint smile graced her lips and yet she felt no happiness. It was close to eleven in the morning, three hours after his shift had officially ended, and he was still working. She knew it to be as the telltale sign of a bad night.  
He would bury himself in work, in studying after particularly bad nights. There was nothing he didn't know about Skynet's creations, from s.d.1's to a.r.u.2's, from i.u.3's to g.a.u.4's, no machine held a secret from him. She didn't like this 'hobby' of dissecting h.c.c.u.5's and i.u.'s, but knew that it was a necessity. He wanted to know everything about the enemy so he could destroy it, so he could teach others how to destroy it.  
"What is it, Connor?" He asked, letting out a deep breath.  
The faint smile grew into a smirk: as always he knew that it was her. She knew how much she had taught him, how much he had taught himself. He heard learned to listen to the footsteps, to distinguish who was coming. Fresh blood was made to walk back and forth past his room so he would remember. And he always remembered.  
The only person she knew who would sit with his back towards the door, as if to tempt fate. There had been attempts on his life, out on the battlefield, here on base, and yet he sat with his back towards the door, making him an easy target for someone to exact revenge for losing a friend, a family member, a loved one.  
"Nothing, just coming to see what's keeping you," she answered as she came closer so she could glance over his shoulder.  
"Just this piece of tech," he said slowly, pointing at the chip lodged into the 'reader'.  
"Anything useful?"  
"No," he shook his head. "Not yet. Skynet must know we're reading the chips. It designed an entirely new language."  
"Fuck," she remarked with a hint of disappointment in her voice that she could not hide while she placed her hands on his shoulders.  
She could feel his tense muscles roll under her touch: "You work too hard, Ty," she whispered, gently kneading the strained knots in his shoulders. "The war will still be here in a couple of hours."  
"The war will always be here. Only when we die, we will see the end of the war," he grumbled.  
Only the dead have seen the end of the war. It was a quote attributed to Plato. A quote that could not be closer to the truth; once you had seen, had been in the war, it would never leave you again. No return to innocence, only when you had died, it would stop.  
She let her hands slide to the center of his chest and rested her chin on top of his head before closing her eyes for a moment. His hands came to rest on top of hers. It was a stolen moment in a world that was not theirs, only to be brutally interrupted when the earth started shaking.

He fell and fell until he hit the floor, landing less than softly on his back, the wind getting knocked out of him completely.  
"Are you okay?" Her voice sounded so distant.  
Slowly he opened his eyes and looked straight into hers. She had knelt next to him and was looking him over for possible injuries: "Are you okay?" She asked again.  
"What the fuck happened?" Tyler hissed through gritted teeth, turning his head to break eyecontact.  
"You fell out of the tree," John chuckled. "Like a huge acorn."  
"I'm sure I wasn't helped," he glared at Cameron who was watching him intently. "What? I was ripe for the plucking and you shook the tree, right?"  
"I don't understand, sir," Cameron answered while she tilted her head a little.  
"Never expected you to understand, tin can," he snorted with contempt while he struggled to sit up and save some of his dignity.  
"Easy, you took quite a dive," Sarah said with some concern while she reached out to help him.  
"No shit... Get off," he barked, pushing her helping hands away.  
"I would let her help you if I were you," John said good-naturedly. "Or prepare yourself for a tirade twice the size of the Titanic."  
"John," Sarah warned her son with a touch of amusement to her voice.  
He rolled his eyes in annoyance: "Like I need reminding," he muttered in a mere whisper.  
"What?" Sarah frowned confused.  
"Nothing," he grumbled. "Couldn't you have at least cushioned the fall?" He asked while he glared at Cameron again. "Pavement versus human… I lost… Again."  
"Too bad, sir. I was most sure you would win," Cameron stated with a faked crooked smile.  
"John didn't forget to program you with his sense of humor," he remarked with a wry smile.  
"You have the same sense of humor, sir," Cameron said, tilting her head a little again.  
He could feel their eyes rest on him like they were expecting something from him, like he would have the answers to all their questions. Biting his tongue to keep him from howling in pain, he was once again reminded of the infernal pain in his shoulders as he tried to get to his feet.  
"Cameron, bring him inside," Sarah ordered determined.

1 Servo-drone

2 Aerial recon unit

3 Infiltration unit

4 Ground assault unit

5 Heavy combat chassis unit


	6. Chapter 5: Ignorance Is Never Better

**Chapter 5: Ignorance Is Never Better Than Knowledge**

It is no good to try to stop knowledge from going forward. Ignorance is never better than knowledge.  
**- Enrico Fermi** _US (Italian-born) physicist (1901 - 1954)_

John shook his head wearily: this wasn't good. He had overheard the exchange of words between his Uncle and Tyler. There was a lot of hostility between them, and he wondered what had brought that on.  
He looked up just in time to see Cameron barge into the room. She hardly ever knocked and always showed up when it was least convenient. He glared at her, not having forgotten that she had kept him in his room when a gun had been fired last night.  
"Mom shot him, didn't she?" He asked as he put one and one together. "It's why his left forearm is bandaged."  
"Yes."  
"Why in your expert robot opinion would she shoot him? What do you know that you are not telling me?" He fired those two questions at her.  
"The future's changed, John," she answered simply. "It's not the future your father told Sarah about."  
"What is the future then?" He growled. "Why would he come to visit us in the middle of the night only to be shot by mom?"  
She kept quiet for a good two minutes and now he wondered what was going on in her chip. Would she lie to him again? Would she stonewall him again by saying it's not her mission or in her files? Or would she tell him what he wanted, needed to know?  
"What's his connection to us, to her?" He broke the silence.  
She tilted her head a little and looked at him: "He was her husband."  
He didn't know if he had to laugh or cry: "That's… Ridiculous. Mom's not the marrying type. She left Charlie at the altar, so to speak."  
"Charlie knew nothing of the world to come. The Lieutenant General was born for that world."  
"So… This TJ Devlin, if he's destined to be my mother's husband. Is that another reason why he could be on that list?"  
"It's not in my files."  
This only confused him more as to why the Lieutenant General was here. Was he here to stay, to marry Sarah Connor and start a family? Was that why his mother was targeted once again? Would this Tyler Devlin be his stepfather? Or was it something else?  
He felt a slow headache building when trying to figure it out for himself. Should he ask all those unanswerable questions the first chance he would get?  
"Are you going to tell Sarah?" It was her turn to ask him a question.  
"Not if I don't have to," he sighed.

He squinted and tried to focus on the name on the dog tag around his friend's neck while the latter reached across the table to get a second helping of cat-rat-stew. -1-7-2 was the only part he could really read. G-C-0-0-1-7-2 was on his mother's tag.  
He looked from Tyler to his mother. Despite that he wished all the happiness in the world for her, it had taken him a long time to get accustomed to the idea of his mother and his best friend being lovers, and now it turned out that they might be even more than that.  
Unsure what stung him more, that they were more or that they hadn't told him, he looked from Tyler to his mother again. There was a certain tenderness, uncommon for this world, between them. A stolen glance, a faint smile, an intended unintended touch. If there was one thing obvious, it was that his mother and Tyler weren't together just to be together. There was something genuine.  
Was he envious or jealous? Once he had gone off to his mother for her being jealous that he had found someone who he actually liked to spend time with. He knew what the exchange of the dog tags meant. It sent a sharp, deep pain through his heart: he didn't have anyone to exchange dog tags with. He didn't deserve to have someone to exchange his dog tags with.  
There were women in his life, after all he was just a man of flesh and blood with natural urges, but it was never anything serious. Never something like what his mother and Tyler seemed to share. Being John Connor was extremely lonely.

She glanced sideways at him while she lead him to her room: "There's a lot of animosity between the two of you. Why?" She asked innocently, thinking she already knew the answer: Kyle.  
"Beats me. He's always been that way towards me," he answered softly.  
"And I'm pretty sure that you haven't done something to strengthen that feeling of hostility," she remarked while she shut the curtains. "Like trying to kill his little brother?" She offered.  
"Kyle was my friend," he whispered. "One of the few to talk to me after," he stopped mid-sentence  
"And yet you tried to kill him," she said grimly.  
He shook his head: "It was an accident… I didn't mean to… He came to visit me after… He knew it wasn't me."  
"Yeah, Derek told me that you have one hell of an excuse," she stated sarcastically.  
"I wish I hadn't," he grumbled. "I wish it was me, but it isn't," he added while he tapped against the side of his head with his right index and middle finger.  
"The perfect excuse. You could go on a killing spree and just blame it on the, what was it called?"  
"Nano's."  
"Nano's. You could go on a killing spree and just blame it on the nano's, all the while you just know that it's you doing it."  
"Oh, come on, Connor," he growled. "I'm a half-breed, but I'm not inhuman. Besides Derek's no angel either."  
"You sure it's not a testosterone thing?" she suggested while she left her room for a moment to get him a clean T-shirt from the hallway closet. "Here," she pressed the piece of clothing in his hands.  
"I doubt it will fit me," he mumbled shyly.  
She didn't get him: one moment he was fearless, the next he was shy, just like last night. He stood looking at the clean T-shirt with a deep frown creasing his forehead.  
"You are kind of a big guy, aren't you? I'll send Cameron out to get you some fitting clothes," she said with a smile. "It doesn't suit you to walk around in rags."  
"Do I make you nervous?" He asked suddenly.  
She stopped in her tracks, cocked her head to one side and looked at him: "What do you mean?"  
He smiled faintly: "When you're nervous, you tend to change subjects and chatter."  
"How would you know?" She asked, chewing on the inside of her lower lip, feeling the blood rise to her cheeks.  
"Trust me, I know," he smiled cryptically.  
"Awesome… Then you probably also know that I will not stop asking you about it until I get some real answers."  
"You're Connor. I expect no less," he laughed warmly.  
She watched, with her arms folded across her chest, as he started to take off his shirt. He made her jumpy, but was that really a surprise after last night? Her eyes slid over the scars that covered his abdomen and his sides, and she could still feel the ridges underneath her fingertips. Happy that she could tug her hands away under her arms to keep her from fidgeting, she let out a deep breath, earning a curious look from him.  
Why did she feel like that naïve college student all of a sudden? She didn't like it one bit, because it was someone she had not been for a very long time. She averted her eyes and stared at the floor in an attempt to stop the tidal wave of stupid questions and silly thoughts. It wasn't like her!  
"Uhm, a little help here?" She heard him ask and she looked up again to see him struggling with his shirt.  
"For God's sake," she scolded. "Here, sit down," she helped him sit on the edge of the bed before helping him out of his shirt.  
"Thank you," he muttered self-consciously.  
"Shoes off," she ordered sternly while she walked into her bathroom to get him some pain killers. "Here, take these," she said upon her return, placing two pills in his hand and handing him a glass of water.  
He shook his head: "I can't," he mumbled as he put the pills on the covers.  
"Take them. It's obvious from the grimaces and the fact that you needed help to get your shirt off that your back is killing you," she said firmly, picking the pills up and placing them in his hand again.  
"I can't," he repeated before bringing his free hand to the side of his head and tapping against it with his index finger.  
"You're kidding, right?" She asked in wonder.  
Slowly he shook his head again: "Alcohol, meds, they don't go well together with the nano's."  
At that her heart sank into her shoes. Kyle had told her about disconnecting the pain. She had taught herself to disconnect the pain but later on there had always been the sweet relief of pain killers. His upper body was covered in scars. More scars than she had seen before, in all sizes.  
Without realizing that she was doing it she brought her right hand up to her right shoulder where the T-1000 had stabbed her.  
If only she hadn't dropped the slug. If only she had been faster with loading the next slug into the Remington 870. If only she hadn't wasted precious seconds with being stunned by the impact the slugs had had on the T-1000.  
She closed her eyes and relived the entire moment up to the moment she had run out of ammo, and the T-1000 had started to recover from all the holes she had put in him. She should have thrown the 870 at him, taken the chance that the impact would knock it over and into the molten steel. Instead she had fired on empty. It had been a mistake. If the T-800 had not been given a reroute so it could switch to alternative power, surely John and she would have been killed by the T-1000 and it would have been all her fault.  
"So much pain," she mumbled upset.  
In her mind she heard Kyle's voice say "Pain can be controlled. You just disconnect it". After opening her eyes again she looked at the man sitting on the edge of her bed. He was looking at her curiously with his head cocked a little to the side. There was a faint smile of understanding forming on his face.  
She shook her head fiercely to get rid of her confusing thoughts. Looking at his face again, the smile had disappeared. She watched as he drank the water greedily and noticed the trail of water spilling down his chin, throat and chest.  
"Can I have another one?" He asked hopeful while he held out the empty glass to her.  
Annoyed with the fact that he thought she was a lackey, she snatched the glass from his hand and disappeared into the bathroom again, only to return seconds later with a full glass of water. Again he drank the water with such eagerness that he spilled more than he downed. Again her eyes followed the path the spilled water took.  
"Thank you," he mumbled while he placed the empty glass on the nhanding her the glass back.  
"Get some rest," she said in a soothing voice while helped him lie back on the bed. "I'll check in on you later."


	7. Chapter 6: Out Of Time, Out Of Place

**Chapter 6: Out Of Time, Out Of Place**

"Don't pay any attention to him," Thomas Devlin said in palliation while he showed his latest girlfriend around the house. "Either he's surfing the internet or he's tinkering on some electronic device."  
TJ rolled his eyes and shrugged. He was in no mood to be social today, or any other day.  
"I do not mind," a woman said behind him. "It is the age of technology."  
The first thing he noticed was the thick Scottish accent. The second thing he noticed was that the woman's voice was void of any emotion. Just his dad, to come home with a foreign ice queen. Still he did not turn around.  
"TJ, if you can spare us a second," Thomas remarked firmly.  
He put the mini-welding torch down and turned around to see his father standing a few feet away from him with a sheepish grin on his face. On his father's arm was a red-haired woman, and he couldn't help but shiver when he saw her.  
"TJ, I'd like you to meet Catherine. Catherine, this is my son Tyler Jess," Thomas said, making formal introductions.  
"It is a pleasure to meet you, TJ," the woman said while she stepped forward and extended her hand.  
He shrugged his shoulders again and shook the woman's extended hand. Another shiver ran up and down his spine. Her hand was hard and cold as steel.  
"Com'on, TJ, be polite," Thomas grumbled when he caught the look on his son's face.  
"I have a daughter," Catherine remarked with a smile.  
He could see it was fake. And the way she had put it into words was strange, like she felt no attachment to her own flesh and blood. He glanced at his father to see if he had picked up on it too. But as always his father had not noticed it and stood grinning like an idiot while undressing the cold, red-haired woman with his eyes.  
"Her name is Savannah," Catherine continued monotonically.  
"Savannah. Now that is a pretty name," Thomas remarked silkily.  
"It was her father's idea. He died in a helicopter crash a while ago."  
The way that woman spoke sent new shivers of icy cold up and down his spine. There was no emotion whatsoever in her voice, no warmth in her eyes. By now he had drawn his conclusion: she was a cold, heartless woman. And once when he had made up his mind, he would stick to it.

Derek stood in the door opening of Sarah's room, watching the man as he slept. Even in his sleep, the Devil was dangerous, especially when caught in tormented dreams like he was now.  
He hated the Devil with every fiber in his war-battered body but he had to admit that the man was one hell of a warrior. He didn't have to like the guy to appreciate him for the Resistance fighter he was. The Devil had saved him and his little brother out of a jam on many occasions.  
The stories about Devlin miraculous recoveries were legendary, only to be overshadowed by the tales of the instability of his mind. Insanity was what kept you alive in the future, but Devlin was pushing the limits.  
He knew that he hadn't been completely honest with Sarah, that he had left out that his little brother and this monster had been friends. Leaving out that little information suited him better. He didn't need the Devil looking over his shoulder.

Catherine looked at the young man sitting across the dining table from her. She felt nothing. She wasn't sentient like Skynet had been twice. This was the second time for her in this time frame. She was just a machine, following orders as she had been programmed. A shape-shifter, designed to be the perfect infiltrator, at least until the development of the nanoattrioids.  
This young man would become one of her master's biggest foes. He, along with John Connor, would deal blow after blow to Skynet's creations and plans. She could kill him but she wasn't here for that. The Skynet that had created her, it had been less impatient, less emotional than the last Skynet she had served.  
It had given her a conflicting mission. She was here to secure Skynet's existence but she was also here to protect the young Tyler Jess Devlin from an infiltrator sent back in time to kill John Connor and his officers.  
Analytical programming had already determined that TJ Devlin, just like John Connor, was essential for the future. Nevertheless, unlike with TJ Devlin, she could never override her mission directive to kill John Connor if she came across him.  
She looked from the young man to the father and managed a fake smile when she caught the latter staring at her with an unknown look in his eyes. The man had no function, no purpose. Killing him would be easy and simple, but her programming prevented her from doing so: Thomas Devlin had to be killed by another infiltrator.  
"TJ wants to study Computer Sciences," Thomas tried to sound proud.  
She tilted her head a little and faked a smile of interest when she looked back from the father to the son. Tyler Jess Devlin would graduate summa cum laude, majoring in Computer Sciences with a minor in Robotics.  
"We live in modern times, Thomas," she remarked. "It is good that he knows about modern technology."  
"He doesn't just know about it. He's obsessed about it." Thomas grumbled.

"Derek, John, dinner's ready!" Sarah's voice carried through the house. "Cameron, go wake up our guest! And bring him his new clothes!"  
Cameron looked at the clothes and picked out the best combination. He would like to wear that. Luckily she had his clothes sizes on file and it had made shopping for clothes easy.  
Slowly she walked through the hallway. Humans would have called it hesitance. It was true that she felt no fear for him but she ran a most likely option analysis, just in case.  
Awoken at the wrong time and he would destroy her without giving it a second thought.  
"What are you waiting for?" John asked from the door opening of his room.  
"Analyses indicate that I need to wait until he is sleeping peacefully."  
"What? You don't want a free flying lesson?" He quipped while he rubbed his shoulder.  
"He will not give me one," she stated. "He will take me apart bolt by bolt. Unlike Sarah, he immediately suit action to his words."  
"Does he ever sleep peacefully?" He suggested as he walked with her to his mother's bedroom. "Maybe mom should wake him?"  
"No, he might confuse her with someone else," she replied monotonically.  
"With who?"  
"The Sarah he knew."  
"Aren't they the same?"  
She shook her head: "No, not yet."  
"Can't you give him something to calm down?" He asked worriedly while they watched the man thrash violently in his sleep.  
"He cannot have a sedative," she answered. "The Lieutenant General cannot have any medications to calm him down. They interfere with the programming of the nanoattrioids. He'll go insane."  
"What do you know about those things?"  
"Nanoattrioids. Based on nanotechnology, specifically nanorobotics. Developed by Skynet for human mind control. Molecule-sized machines designed to over the neural functioning of the human in which they have been injected. Contain the possibility of tissue engineering and energy usage regulation. It stores movement as such automotion in memory."  
"But why?"  
"Skynet creates humanlike units to infiltrate and destroy bases of the Resistance. The easiest way to spot those units is through the use of dogs. They sense that we are not human and will bark frantically. Hounds, a human and a dog team, checked people at the door, checked discovered pockets. When future you started using us in the battle against Skynet, the Hounds-division became nearly obsolete. IntelliTech Base was one of the very few bases that kept Hounds in use. After the Hounds came the Spotters, humans trained to spot infiltrators with the naked eye. Spotters weren't very effective. Sergeant Reese, First Lieutenant Reese, Lieutenant General Devlin, Private O'Conlin, you. The elite of the Spotters. Future you figured that with the end of the war nearing reinstating the Hounds would be pointless."  
She looked at him to make sure that he understood all of it before continuing: "A lot of bases fell in the last months of the war because they were left unprotected by specialized units."  
"And among them was IntelliTech Base. Devlin's base. I guess he wasn't as good a Spotter as was said before," he remarked.  
"IntelliTech Base's fall was an act of treason."  
She noticed the faint frown creasing his forehead: "Is that why he's here? To stop the traitor, to change the future?"  
"I do not know his mission," she answered, glancing at the man she was supposed to wake up.  
"I would believe you if I didn't know that you would lie to me if the mission requires it," he said bitterly.

Adrenaline. The ultimate kick. Life or death. His heart was thumping wildly in his chest. This was living life to the max. He ran to the front of the flying machine and ripped the hatch open, exposing the electronics. It was the last a.r.u. of the drove. Adrenaline coursed through his veins like tidal waves.  
One more a.r.u., one more carefully timed jump and it was game over for the last of the lot of those damned flying tin cans. He reached into the compartment, closed his hand around the wires and gave it a firm pull.  
Electric sparks. Sputtering engines. Howling wind. The machine began on its involuntary descent, nose first.  
He had perfected his technique of a.r.u.-jumping and knew what was coming. Counting back from five, he prepared himself for the last jump. Ultra-alert all of a sudden when he felt something shake at his shoulder. A tin can? He turned around and looked into glaring red eyes. It wasn't like Skynet to secure its creations. One machine more or less didn't matter to the supercomputer. It was sentient but it did not feel the pain of war, of death.  
Suddenly he was flat on his back with the h.c.c.u. looking down at him. This wasn't the time for playing. He jumped to his feet and tackled the machine at the waist.  
The dark, cold world faded into a bright room with flowery wallpaper.  
"Metal," he growled through gritted teeth while he placed his hands firmly on Cameron's shoulder before slamming her into the wall.  
Dust fell from the ceiling and whirled up from the floor on impact. The wall creaked under the force.  
"You goddamn tin can!" He seethed, pulling her back from the wall and slamming her into it again.  
The wall splintered and gave way while Cameron fell over backwards on release. He stepped through the hole in the wall, knelt over the machine and started punching her in the face with his left fist.  
"Stop it!" John ordered while he came hurrying down the hallway.  
He looked at the boy: "She's metal!"  
"She's my protector," John countered as he started pulling on him.  
"You wouldn't need one if you weren't such a baby," he growled, shrugging John's hands from his left upper arm.  
"What the hell is going on?!" Sarah exclaimed, alerted by the noise, her hand behind her back. "What the fuck happened?" She asked furiously, looking at the hole in the wall.  
Unable to stop it, a mischievous grin appeared on his face: "We decided to redecorate. Ain't that right, Miss Tin?"  
"Redecorate, right," Cameron echoed.  
Slolwly he rose to his feet and looked at John before glancing at Sarah. She wasn't the same woman as he had known in his time. At least she wasn't yet. He looked at his left hand before brushing the dust and chalk off.


	8. Chapter 7: No One Is Ever Safe

**Caution:** _May contain what could be considered explicit content. Reader discretion is highly advised. Mature readers only._

_

* * *

_**Chapter 7: No One Is Ever Safe**

She looked at the man sitting across the table from her. He seemed so lost in thoughts and yet he was totally aware of his surroundings. A skill acquired during years and years of battle against the machines, against the tiranny of Skynet. Two big scars and numerous little ones told the story of war.  
He was on edge and ate in silence. Her eyes were drawn to Derek who sat pushing his food back and forth across his plate with his fork. There was something on his mind, and she was worried that he might speak his thoughts as he sat staring at Tyler.  
"So," Derek began. "Who are you gonna try to kill next? Sarah or John?"  
Tyler glanced up for a second and then returned his attention to his meal.  
"You could go for John's throat again?" Derek suggested. "Wouldn't be the first time."  
Her heart skipped a beat and she became ultra-alert instantly. Her hand automatically reached for the cold grip of her Glock, tucked safely in the waistband of her jeans. Had they taken in the enemy?  
She observed the man while he gratefully took her son's plate and emptied it on his own plate.  
"You've got to be kidding me, right?" Tyler asked sharply.  
"First you tried to kill my little brother. Then an attempt on the General's life," Derek said smugly.  
"I wasn't in my right mind." Tyler stated coolly.  
"A very good excuse for a traitor," Derek taunted.  
"I am a lotta things, Reese, but I am no traitor," Tyler seethed, dropping his knife and fork, looking darkly at Derek.  
"You're a fucking half-breed... Sound like a goddamn traitor to me."  
"C's choice. Not mine," Tyler growled while he slammed his right fist on the table. "I would've gladly died, but C wouldn't let me."  
"Yeah, yeah, poor devil," Derek grinned maliciously.  
"Derek! That's enough," she finally intervened when she caught the darkening expression on Tyler's face.  
Tyler rose to his feet, glared at Derek and stalked out of the house.  
"Nice going, Derek," she grumbled angrily. "Who knows when or if we will see him again."  
"Good riddance," Derek smiled victoriously. "Who needs a traitor?"

He opened his eyes slowly and smiled warmly when he saw her head rest on his chest. She had worn herself out a few hours ago. He brought his left hand up and tenderly played with the wild locks of her hair. When it was just the two of them, the outside world did not exist. There was no war. There was no Skynet. His mind wandered, like it always did.  
If he were to exist in a world without Judgement Day, without Skynet, without the war against the machines, would he have known her? Could there ever have been a chance for them without the war pushing them together? He had known her since he was sixteen, and he had loved her since he was sixteen. But he wasn't supposed to be in a world without the future. He was part of John Connor's pet project: his mother would be from the future. Without her going back in time to fins his father, he would never be.  
Closing his eyes for a moment, he tried to clear his thoughts: there was no other world, no other future than this.  
She stirred a little and a shiver of disappointment ran through his body when she raised her head. The evening was coming. Another night of heavy battles and big losses. He didn't want to get up. He didn't want to leave the safe haven that was her room. He squeezed his eyes closed and pretended to still be asleep. Maybe he would fall asleep again? And be lost in a world that wasn't his, but would grant him peace?  
He could feel her disentangle herself from the sheets that had bound her close to him. In a few seconds the warmth of her body pressed against his would leave him entirely as he noticed the weight shifts next to him.  
A low groan almost escaped him when she straddled his lap suddenly, her strong thighs pressing softly against his hips.  
"I'm happy that at least a part of you is awake," she whispered with a sultry voice.  
He looked at her through narrow slits and fought to keep a smile from his face. If Sarah Connor wanted something, she would get it, one way or another. Patiently he waited for her to make the next move, but she didn't talk or move. Confused he opened his eyes and looked at her: she was a take charge woman and it surprised him that she didn't continue with her little setup.  
She was looking at him, absentmindedly playing with the dog tags around her neck. She had started to wear them shortly after they had become lovers.  
"Are you okay, Connor?" He asked concerned.  
She nodded and sent him a faint smile: "I'm okay... Just thinking."  
"'Bout what?"  
He waited patiently while she took a deep breath and was obvious searching for the right words: "Maybe this isn't the right time," she mumbled, looking away from him.  
"The right time for what?"  
His heart start to beat frantically and he now started to really worry. It wasn't like her to clam up like that: she always spoke her mind like no one else he had ever known.  
"I should've waited for a better time," she muttered.  
He sighed: "Better times? They're non-existent in this world, Connor. Carpe diem. Don't postpone till tomorrow what you can do today."  
"These seven years," she paused and he could see the wheels turning in her mind. "I never thought I would ever find shelter from this world. When Reese came across time for me, it felt like I had crossed some invisible line. Like I had entered into his world, that it was him, me and the machine."  
He tried not to feel jealous but every time she mentioned Reese it sent a dagger through his heart. The only consolation he had was that the kid was alive and that she was here with him and not the kid.  
"When Reese died to protect me, I died. My heart was shattered into a billion pieces. He gave me John but at a cost. I was a dreamer, naive, thinking that when the machine was destroyed Reese and I could lead a normal life. That we could go to Disney World and eat hotdogs until we puked. Fortuna had other plans and I spent most part of my life on the run, trying to stop Skynet. The other Devlin, I didn't want to see what was so obvious. But he was you and you are him."  
He wondered if there was a point to her words, since she did not make it easy on him in this position. It was hard to focus on what she was saying: she had aroused him and now she was stalling. It would be so easy to pin her down and take what she had offered him a few moments ago but he could tell that what she wanted to say was important. If he were to interrupt her, she might never ever say it.  
"People wear masks to cover up what they are thinking or feeling," she said while she looked him in the eye. "The only person you can truly know is yourself. I've had a dozen aliases, numerous jobs but the only times I get to be me is when I'm alone or when I'm around you. Even though you don't really know me, you know me in ways I never thought someone else would know me. You know secrets I thought I would take into my grave without others knowing."  
Slowly he nodded and focused on keeping his hands to his sides again. She needed to get this out of her system and it wouldn't help her if he would play the lover-card. He watched as she reached for the chain around her neck and took it off.  
She took a deep breath before saying: "I never got married because I was a threat to others. I left Charlie Dixon at the altar because he didn't know my world or my future. People died because they loved me."  
Blood was roaring in his veins and made it hard for him to hear her since with each word she lowered the volume of her voice, but now he understood what she had been aiming at. It wasn't that it had never crossed his mind, because it had, but he had never asked her for it. She took his right hand with the palm turned upwards, carefully placed the chain with the dog tags in it and gently pushed it closed: "I want you to wear this."  
He was stunned beyond words. After opening and closing his mouth to speak, in vain, he looked at her. She was a closed book and yet her feelings could not have been more clear than now. Exchanging dog tags equalled the old tradition of marriage. It was a sign of commitment, of true commitment.  
A long moment of silence followed. Seconds seemed to last minutes and he could see her doubt return. His heart was beating at a frightening speed and his thoughts were swimming in a whirlpool of emotions, disabling his speech. He felt as if he couldn't move and his throat went dry. Her timing had been awkward: she had seduced him, causing his body to harden and strain, leaving it shouting at him to take what she so willingly offered, and then she had asked him to wear her chain and dog tags.  
"It obviously was a mistake," she muttered upset while she reached for his right hand again.  
He shook his head and mumbled: "No. No, it wasn't… You… You just caught me by surprise."  
She looked him in the eye and he could see that she wasn't buying it. His silence has caused her determination to crumble and his heart ached for her: "Are you sure that this is what you want, Connor?"  
"I thought long and hard about it, if that's what you meant," she grumbled, unable to hide the annoyance from her voice.  
Slowly he sat up, limiting the friction between their bodies to a minimum: "I love you, Connor. I've always loved you. You were my favorite heroine. You are the woman my mother told me about in bedtime stories. I know them by heart," he said while he looked her in the eye.  
He could see that she didn't follow, but it didn't matter. Maybe he was conditioned to love her, just like Kyle Reese had been, but he didn't care. No matter the input of others like his mother or John Connor, this love was real. They had only helped them to find their way to each other, but love could never be forced.

He sighed and looked at the house across the street. Light was streaming from the windows into the darkened street. It was so easy to forget that she wasn't her yet.  
The morning IntelliTech Base had fallen, he had died, just like he had died four years before that after helping John Connor escape from Century. However this time he had stayed dead. Emotions were useless and only weakened the possessor. He had dreamt of her, he had called for her but she had never returned.  
He had become he who walks the day, the demon who killed tin cans for the sport, the devil who could turn on his own. Nano-man, half-breed, tin arm, he had heard all the bad names before. He had heard it all before, but it had never bothered him again.  
Nevertheless seeing her alive, it had a caused a spark in his heart. She made him feel again. It wasn't his mind or his physical condition that kept the nano's in check. It was her all along.  
It was true what Derek had said. He had tried to kill Kyle Reese, and he had tried to kill John Connor, but it hadn't been him. Once the nanoattrioids would kick in, there was no more control, no more channelling, no more him.  
He had died so many times already but it had never been the end for him. Wounds that would have killed any mortal man, he survived. It had not been MedCom that had kept him alive after that fateful morning, it had been Skynet tech. The nanoattrioids, making sure their host would live to see another day to go on a rampage, had.  
A grin spread across his face: "What do you want, Connor?"  
"You know it was me?" A woman's voice behind him asked surprised.  
"I know you. I know your walk," he answered. "Even when you're trying to sneak."  
Slowly he turned around and grinned at her. It did surprise him that she had found him but she had a tin can at her disposal. A quick thermal proximity scan, and she would know where he was.  
"Couldn't you have found an easier spot to observe us from?"  
"So Cameron could shake me from another tree? No, thanks, once is enough," he answered wryly.  
She smiled faintly: "Cameron is just Cameron."  
"No shit," he growled, rubbing his sore shoulder.  
"Well, I wanted you to know that I'm sorry about it."  
"And you climbed all the way up here to tell me that?" He couldn't keep the sarcasm from his voice. "Don't worry about it," he added in palliation. "I've been through a lot worse. Especially with rubber balls and tin cans on my tail."  
"Rubber balls?"  
"T-6double0's. Rubber-skinned infiltration units. Skynet's first attempt to fool us," he explained while he turned back to watch the house again.  
He could hear her come closer: "Cameron said that you know everything there is to know about them."  
"Not everything," he stated.  
"Awesome," she grumbled. "How to crush someone's hope in just one sentence."  
"It's the truth," he defended. "Liquid metal boy."  
"The T-one-thousand?" She asked, her voice a mere whisper.  
Absently he touched his left shoulder: "No, the T-one-thousand-and-one"  
"And one?" She countered with a question of her own. "Did Skynet built another one, an improved version?"  
"The T-one-thousand was a prototype. A high efficiency rate, developed by Skynet for interrogation and termination purposes. Its construction and development program was discontinued when it failed its mission in the past," he replied. "Instead Skynet decided continuation of the 800 series was the best option but in the meantime it improved the T-one-thousand, making it a T-one-thousand-and-one," he paused. "Liquid metal boy?"  
"Took a hot bath at a steel mill before deciding it really didn't like it," she told him as she came to stand next to him. He looked at her from the corner of his eye and smiled. He know that she hadn't looked him up for idle chat, but to get answers one way or another.  
"Extreme cold. Extreme heat," he nodded. "It's the only things we know of as how to get rid of it."

_'Tis better to have loved and lost; Than never to have loved at all._ It came from the poem LXXXV of In Memoriam A.H.H. by Alfred Tennyson.  
Words that appeared hollow to him. He had watched his friend die and die again. His friend, still among the living, seemed a ghost and nothing like the legendary fighter he had once been. Many heroes had fought and died an honorable death in the present, but his friend's fate lay in a past long gone.  
He looked at the young woman sleeping soundly next to him. Soon she would die too and be replaced by an immediate replacement infiltrator. A deep sigh escaped his lungs and she stirred a little. For a moment he feared that he had woken her up but the steady breathing told him that he hadn't. He smiled with relief.  
The fall of the Resistance's most secret base had underlined one thing again: no one was ever safe. Not from the war, not from the machines, not from love.


	9. Chapter 8: The Lost City

**Chapter 8: The Lost City**

Haven… The underground city. A cesspool. A rats' nest. Crime flourished here, like weed. Gangs, brothels, smugglers, anything and anyone outlawed in the old world could be found here. A city nothing short of Sodom and Gomorra.  
Whispers in the tunnels spoke of a pending collaboration of the human inhabitants of the city and the machines, and he was sent here by special request to check it out. The Informers, they had filed report after report of an increasing number of grays.  
Civs, refs gone a.w.o.l., tired of fleeing, tired of war. They had found refuge in this city without laws, without rules. Skynet did not even bother to annihilate this place, probably finding it an unlimited source of test-subjects and collaborators. Humans who would betray their own in exchange for their life.  
He was there on a mission: to verify if the whispers in the tunnels held truth, to speak with the mayor and to take, if necessary, measures.  
A scruffy looking young woman, dressed in ripped rags, approached him.  
"Nice night for a walk," she whispered to him.  
"Nice night for a walk," he echoed.  
"Quod licet Jovi non licet bovi*," she said softly.  
"Morituri te salutant**," was his reaction.  
It was the safe code that had been agreed upon between the Resistance and the Informers.  
"Are you Devlin?"  
He nodded slowly.  
"We've been expecting you."

The young woman, who had introduced herself as Isa, brought him to a small hut. Huts, houses made of debris determined the small and dirt-covered streets of Haven. He was in no hurry to meet the Informer, judging that taking in the city and its inhabitants was of the utmost importance for his mission. After finally arriving, she had pointed at what could be considered a couch once and had told him to wait while she would fetch 'Walker', the Informer who had brought this to John Connor's attention.  
After ten minutes Isa returned with an older man on her arm. He studied the man and frowned; the man looked like he could fall apart any moment now.  
"Devlin?" The man asked hesitantly, eyeing him closely.  
"Yes… Walker?"  
"Call me Caleb," the man said slowly as he still looked at him.  
"Okay… Caleb. Tell me about your findings," he said sternly.  
"I like a man who doesn't beat around the bush. The last one the General sent was a chatterbox," Caleb smiled dryly. "Your reputation precedes you, Devlin, although I had expected someone older."  
"Cut the bullshit," he ordered. "And tell me what you know."  
He noticed that the older man looked startled, even a little afraid.  
"You must be high-ranked and used to giving orders," Caleb mumbled impressed.  
"My rank is none of your concern, Caleb. I've come here to verify and gather information. Not for idle chitchat," he grumbled annoyed.  
"First you'll need other clothes. You look too much like an official," Caleb remarked. "Isa, get him some proper clothes. We don't want the attention of the Blues."  
"The Blues?" He asked, knowing that the Blues were some kind of law enforcement unit.  
"Kowalski's police. They run this town, and don't like the boys from the Resistance snooping around," Caleb answered.  
"Kowalski?" He now asked, pretending not to know who Kowalski was.  
"Edward Kowalski Junior. Edward Kowalski Senior is the mayor and he left his son in charge of the Blues… What? Did the General send a Rook this time?" Caleb sounded irritated.  
His gaze followed the young woman who walked up to what should pass for a closet. She pulled out a pair of dirty torn jeans, a gray wool sweater and a pair of old, black sneakers.  
"Here," she said with a smile while she handed him the clothes.  
"They'll make you fit in more… For as far as that is possible," Caleb mumbled as he looked at him again.

"Sit down, Ty," John smiled, gesturing at a chair.  
"I prefer to remain standing, John. Not planning on staying here for too long," Tyler remarked.  
"So how's mom?" He asked, knowing that the manner he had asked it in would tick his friend off.  
"She's doing fine. Went on a rynoing spree after Arcadia," Tyler answered slowly. "Nice deal: you almost got caught and I get to pay for it."  
"Like you mind," he laughed. "If someone can withstand ryno's, it's you."  
He caught the wry smile on Tyler's face: "I certainly don't mind… And she certainly made it up to me. Besides I happen to like it when she gets fiery and forceful with me."  
A shudder ran through him. He had accepted it, but to be confronted with it was an entirely different story. It pointed out the cruel and harsh reality of this world. Love was rare, and he was still worried about the effect it would have on his mother and his friend. Would they be weakened? Or would the knowledge of love strengthen them?  
He looked at his long-time friend and brother-in-arms again. Having someone to love, to love him back had made his friend a very different man from the one he had known for a few days in his teenage years. Nevertheless so did the nanoattrioids. It had saved his friend's life, but the effects had yet to surface. The nanoattrioids combined with him having been an Undertaker, it should result in a deadly force.  
He had not heard of Tyler going on an insanely violent rampage, only that he would go out for a couple of hours and would return with metal skulls and a handful of c.p.u.'s. No one knew where he would go or what he would do.  
Tyler 'The Devil' Devlin, a one of a kind fighter, who had not even begun to reach his full potential yet. Nevertheless John knew that with the right means of persuasion, the Devil would be deadlier than any machine. And that was why he had chosen him for this mission.

Out in the field, he was a very light sleeper, awake at the faintest noise, alert at the smallest movement.  
"The Blues will be here soon, father," he heard Isa say in a whisper.  
"The Kowalski's will be pleased," Caleb said cheerfully. "I am most sure that they will fetch a big prize for this one."  
"Maybe we shouldn't, father," Isa suggested with worry seeping deep into her voice. "He isn't like the others."  
"Isa," Caleb sighed. "He's not a knight in shining armor who will come to whisk you away and give you a better life. You're a goddamn whore. He won't even look at you twice."  
He kept his eyes closed in a natural manner and even pretended to snore when he heard movement close by. She had told him in a moment of honesty that she made a living on her back when a man propositioned her while they were staking out the city. His chivalry had kicked in and he had asked her if she had needed help.  
"Still," Isa muttered, sounding upset. "He isn't like any of the others."  
"And that is exactly why we should," Caleb insisted. "He's different. And that makes me think that he is important to the General."  
"Think of all the goodwill we'll get from the General when we let him walk," Isa offered.  
"Are you forgetting Junior and the Blues? Do you really want to go to jail just because he was nice to you once?" Caleb asked darkly. "If you even get to see jail? Instead of Junior killing us first. If we don't turn this guy over, Junior will torture us until we beg to be put out of our misery."  
He heard her heave a deep sigh: "You are right, father, as always."  
Why wasn't he surprised at their betrayal? Why wasn't he surprised that the rats were in high places? It was one thing that had not changed since the old world.  
He rolled over, on his other side, still pretending to be asleep. So he was to be held for ransom? Fighting off the slow smile that was forming on his face, they would have another thing coming.  
"Junior will be here in a few minutes. It's time for us to leave," Caleb said in a soft voice. "He looks like a brawler, and things aren't going to be pretty."

John stared at the computer screen, at the picture of the younger version of the man out on the rooftop of the house across the street. In a way, it felt like a relief that he was no longer the only one who was so goddamn important to the Resistance. It should be a relief to his mom as well, but he knew how the mind of his mother worked. And he knew something that she didn't.  
She would flip a switch or two if she would know that the man on the rooftop had been her husband. He had asked Cameron more about it, but she had resorted to her standard answer of it not being in her files, which could be a lie or not.  
It was absurd to think that his mom had been someone's wife once, or would be in this case. It hadn't happened yet, and he wondered if it would ever happen if his mom would ever find out. He knew that his mother would still pine for his father, but this Tyler Devlin… He was something different and maybe the man to mend part of his mother's broken heart.  
Catching the glances Devlin had casted at his mother during dinner. There had been a profound sadness in the man's eyes. Would Devlin ever act on his old feelings? Or would he turn out to be the monster his Uncle had described him to be?  
He had tried to kill him and his father in the future. That thought sent shivers down John's spine. Added the fact that Devlin had been saved by Skynet technology, he wondered if Devlin was really to be trusted or if he had a hidden agenda as a Skynet infiltrator. Come tomorrow he would seek him out and try to get Devlin to talk about his mission, even if his mom would not like him climbing up to that roof.  
Was Devlin to be trusted? Or not?

TJ quickly turned off the lights in his room when he heard his father come down the hallway. Each night around this time, his father would come to check on him to see if he was sleeping or if he was doing something he wasn't supposed to be doing, like hacking a site for the sport of it. He pulled the covers up to his ears and waited patiently for his father to open the door to his room so he could see what he was up to.  
He had deserved it, being caught hacking a few times already. His father, mortally embarrassed that his son was a criminal, had grounded him the first time and taken away his computer priviliges the next times. Everything his father ever did was to enhance his image as the most popular professor on campus. A criminal son did not fit that perfect picture.  
Now that he was in bed already, he could try to fall asleep but with each passing day the memories of his mother become more vivid, like a change was coming, keeping him awake at all hours of the night. It was stupid, of course. The fantastic tales she had told him were nothing more than that. Just fantastic tales, but what he wouldn't give to be the hero in her stories for real.  
One time she had told him about a lost city and how he, as the imaginary hero, had made all the difference. He closed his eyes and envisioned the events that his mother had told him about. She had been such a wonderful story-teller, making the world she had invented for her fantastic stories come to life, as if she had really been there to witness it all.  
The door creaked when his father opened it: "Are you asleep, TJ?" His father asked in a whisper.  
He knew better than the answer and kept quiet.  
Footsteps in his room and a deeply disappointed sigh: "Your computer is still warm, son. When do you ever learn?"  
He pretended to wake: "Hmm, what?" He mumbled.  
"Will I find the cops on my doorstep again tomorrow?" His father asked sourly.  
"Why?" He asked, trying to sound sleepy.  
"The last thing I need is to have you caught hacking again, TJ. Do you have any idea how bad it looks on me to have a criminal for a son? People are talking on campus."  
He stretched himself and blinked a few times before saying: "So? I'm not a cracker, dad."  
"Cracker. Hacker. Same thing to me."  
Now it was his turn to sigh disappointed: "A world of difference, dad. But what do you know? All you care about is your precious image."  
They had had this discussion each time the police had come to the door to arrest him for cyber crimes. Now they were having it because his father was pissed off over his new girlfriend siding with his son on choosing Computer Science as a career and he needed to take it out on the source.  
"That's a lie. All I care about is that you grow up without falling into bad crowds and with a good education. Do you really think that computer companies will want to hire a cyber-criminal? You have gotten off with a slap on the wrist uptil now, but one of these days your luck will run out and there will be a judge who will send you to jail. And once that has happened, no company in their right mind will want to hire you, not even speaking of the complications it will have during your college years."  
"Computer companies hire hackers on a daily basis, dad. Hackers are very useful for them, even your girlfriend seems to think so. When you were in the kitchen, she offered me an internship at her company. With this new military project her company is working on, a few job places have opened up and she offered me one."  
"Did you thank her after you accepted it?"  
"I didn't, dad. I told her that I would need to think about it, but I don't think I will take her up on her offer."  
"Have you gone crazy?" His father exclaimed. "Do you have any idea how good it would look on your resume that you took an internship at ZeiraCorp? Other companies will be lining up to hire you after you have finished college."  
He propped himself up on his elbows: "Not everything is about appearances, dad. She only knows me for about two hours and she comes with such an offer... It just doesn't feel right."  
"You are just like your mother. Turning down an once-in-a-lifetime offer just because it doesn't feel right is exactly what she would do. First thing tomorrow morning you're gonna do is to call Cathy and tell her that you thought about it and that you accept her offer."  
"I'm sorry, dad, but I won't," he sighed.  
"In that case you can work your way through college because I won't be paying a dime if you don't accept such a generous offer," his father remarked matter-of-factly.  
"But. But that's blackmail," he exclaimed upset.  
"It's called helping your career, son. If you want to be stupid again, you can be stupid but not at my expense. If you take Cathy's offer, I will pay for your education. If you don't, you can find yourself a job and pay for college yourself."

* * *

_* Quod licet Jovi non licet bovi_ translated from Latin: What is permitted to Jupiter is not permitted to the ox

_** Morituri Te Salutant_ translated from Latin: Those who are about to die salute you


	10. Chapter 9: Monster, Unleashed

**Chapter 9: Monster, Unleashed (The Lost City - Part II)**

Haven… The underground city. A cesspool. A rats' nest. Crime flourished here, like weed. Gangs, brothels, smugglers, anything and anyone outlawed in the old world could be found here. A city nothing short of Sodom and Gomorra.  
It was on fire. Numerous bodies covered the blood red streets. Innocents trampled in the stampede. Innocents killed as collateral damage. Blues, traitors, killed by a monster, unleashed. Cries of pain and horror echoed between the walls of huts and shabby houses.  
Haven… The underground city. Reduced to ruins once again.

Sarah looked at the hulking form a few feet away from her. He stood frozen, like a statue. She had come here to get answers, but had only been presented with more questions. It appeared he was lost in thoughts, staring at the house he had to watch, and yet everything in his posture told her that he was well aware of his surroundings.  
It was something she had already noticed during dinner before Derek had started provoking him. She could see the hard, dark look on his face while his eyes scanned the surroundings and the house, the way he did it reminding her of the machine. And she tried to imagine how it felt to be part man, part machine. He had said that he hadn't wanted it. It had not been his choice but her son's in the future.  
"It's worse than ever before, right?" She asked slowly.  
He turned his head a little and she could see him glancing at her from the corners of his eyes: "I don't know about that," he said softly.  
"We can never stop it, can we?"  
"We stopped it. Skynet went offline a few days ago," he answered.  
"It's not what I meant… I meant it will always happen. No matter what we do, it happens still," she whispered, following his gaze when he looked back at the house again. "You, younger you, will go through this again."  
He nodded: "He will. He will change, like me. I'm not who I met in my teens. He will not be me in the future."  
"No fate but what we make for ourselves," she said in agreement.  
"The future is not set. We change it by doing things differently from the previous time. Other Tyler, he had never met me when he was a teen. I did get to meet me, and I swore that I would never become him, but I did… In the end, I did."

He hid between the roof beams, in the shadows, waiting for the perfect moment to strike, watching the front door like a hawk would watch his prey. Fast approaching footsteps. They were coming for him. The door gave way with a loud crack when it was kicked in.  
Six men in blue uniforms stormed in, followed by a seventh man dressed in black uniform. He assessed the situation from his perch while the six men in blue turned the place upside down.  
"This place is deserted, sir," one of the Blues said to the man in black.  
"Those fucking rats! They sold us out!" The man in black seethed. "Put out an alert for the Schneiders and their guest! They can't be far yet!"  
One of the Blues nodded and radioed in the alert.  
Without making any noise, he lowered himself from the beam down to the ground.  
"Sir," the Blues, who had radioed in the alert, exclaimed startled when he saw their target appear behind their leader.  
Tyler shoved the man in black into the wall while the six Blues surrounded him. Adrenaline began to surge through his veins, and yet he felt icy calm. Two out of the six Blues reached for their belts and took off their electric cattle prods before taking uncontrolled swings at him.  
He jumped back, dodging their poor attempts with great ease: "I would not do that if I were you," he growled.

Robin Baxter lowered the binoculars and sighed. Haven wasn't big compared to the cities of the old world but it was a city. A first series of explosions caused the ground to quake and the blast waves made the air tremble.  
She looked at the man standing next to her: "What have you done?" She asked him in a firm voice.  
"What I had to," the man answered slowly.  
"What have you done?" She repeated her question, this time her voice was trembling from restrained emotions.  
"I did what I had to," he sighed.  
She watched as yellow-orange clouds of fire reached for the sky and could barely hold back the tears. Tears that had nothing to do with the destruction of Haven, and everything to do with the only man she had ever really cared for.  
"Oh god, what have you done?" She seethed, turning to him suddenly and pulling back to slap him across the face.  
He turned to face her and she was shocked by the look on his face: "I'm sorry, Bax, but this had to be done."  
"You unleashed the monster in him! You did this to him!" She screeched.

Pitiful cries of agony fell upon deaf ears. Sickening cracks of bones snapping, the squishy sounds of flesh torn apart. Civilians struggling and fighting to get away.  
Footsteps approaching fast. Another squad of Blues sent to stop him: "Metal!"  
Blood splattered everywhere. Slowly he was making his way to 'city hall', only hindered by the guards from time to time. Another crack. Another squish.  
Bodies lay strewn across the streets of Haven. His walk was that of one of them, the blank expression on his blood smeared face too. His arms were covered in blood and gore up to his elbows. The monster had been unleashed.

He sat down on the edge of the roof. It had been a horrible night. A.w.o.l. resistance fighters, tired of the war. Civilians, unable to fight. They had died at his hands. So many people had died that night when the monster had roamed the streets of Haven. He had made no distinction between man or woman, between healthy or sick. Haven had been a safe place for traitors of the human kind and he had gone on a killing spree.  
John Connor had used him. He had been sacrificed like a pawn in a game of chess. An Undertaker with nano's on the brain, the ultimate killing machine. It was the infiltrator Skynet had been looking for, had been trying to create. That was why Skynet had kept him alive; a human infected by micro machines, becoming one of them without the Hounds catching on. That was why John Connor had sent his mother back in time: he was a Skynet creation turned good.  
He looked at his left arm. It was an added insult to injury. It had not been enough that he had practically murdered all citizens of Haven as a human, the cyborg arm marked him for the monster he had become.  
One full strike with the hotshot* had triggered the nanoattrioids, setting his mind on fire once again, glaring red eyes staring down at him from darkness. He had died that night, like he had died on the morning of their escape from Century a few months before.  
"Are you okay?" She asked while she sat down a few feet away from him.

"Are you okay?" She exclaimed upset when she saw him come down the stairs of the lower tunnel complex. "Ty?"  
He was covered in blood from head to toe, making it impossible to see if he was injured or not.  
"What happened?" She asked, fighting off the urge to race up to him.  
He seemed different. He was different. A hollow look in his eyes, that did not bode well. He was feverishly shaking all over. His breathing was hitching and shallow.  
"What happened?" She repeated panic-stricken as she watched him fall to his knees. "Tyler?"  
The fact that he wasn't talking scared her more than seeing him covered in blood and gore. When she addressed him, he always answered with a word or a glance. He didn't answer her now.  
"Are you hurt? Do I need to get Ethan or Robin?"  
He glanced at her, his eyes still empty, and shook his head before he placed his hands on the floor. Her heart was pounding erratically. What the hell had happened in three days he had been out? He was still there, but how much of him was left?  
She grimaced when he threw up whatever he had eaten that day. It reminded her of what had happened so many years ago in Mexico. A bug. Not one you would get from eating something bad. But one you would get from severe psychological trauma. She had been sloppy and had made mistakes, leaving vital clues behind and leading Cromartie to her son.  
In a desperate attempt to save her humanity, she had let that boy at the bowling alley live where she should have killed him or at least should have let Cameron kill him. However she had pitied the poor soul and had let him live, only to be found, tortured and killed by Cromartie. It had set a chain reaction in motion. She had neglected her duty and it had nearly gotten her son killed.  
Hesitantly she walked over to him and knelt on one knee next to him while she gently touched him on the shoulder. Whatever had happened, she felt that he needed to know that she was still there with him.  
She felt his muscles flex and unflex underneath her touch as he threw up again. It killed her to see him like that and not know what had happened. He had told her three days ago that her son wanted to discuss something with him and then he had disappeared for those three days, only to return like this. Something very bad had happened.  
Slowly she rose to her feet, leaned down a little and held her hand out to him: "Come… Let's get you cleaned up," she offered with a reassuring smile.

Cold. He had been so cold. Like the dead.  
"Yes, I'm fine," he answered while he squinted, not hearing the next time she said.  
"Didn't you hear me?" He could hear the annoyance clearly present in her voice.  
"Something's wrong," he stated while he grabbed the ledge and jumped off onto the balcony of the second floor.  
"What's wrong?" Her voice trailed down from the rooftop.  
"Reese, that's what's wrong," he growled, jumping over the barrier of the balcony to the floor. "He's a hothead, just like his little brother. Both very capable of doing the stupidest things, but at least Kyle would stop and think it over once in a while."  
He almost lost his footing when he landed on the uneven grass, Without seeing the traffic, with only thing on his mind, he started to run towards the Connor house. Instinctively he jumped and slid over the hood of a passing car, only glancing darkly at the frustrated driver who was honking like a madman.  
Derek was a soldier with a short fuse. Not that he would kill his nephew, but he could hurt him. He could hurt him badly, if not by action then by words. The futures as they had known it should remain covered by the veils of time and not be disclosed in a moment of rage.  
He picked up the pace, jumped over the fence and stormed up the steps of the porch before he rammed the front door of its hinges with his left shoulder without slowing down for a second. He had to stop Derek from making a huge, life-altering mistake. Registering Cameron's defensive stance and her threat assessment, he ran past her to John's room.  
"You don't know what you've done!" He heard Derek howl.  
He picked up the speed even more, slamming into the wall while he turned the corner towards John's room..  
"The kid doesn't know, Reese!" He barked when he stormed into John's room.  
"He does now!" Derek seethed through gritted teeth as he glared at him.  
"What did he tell you, John?" He asked in a friendly manner while he looked at the frightened teenage boy.  
"That this Baxter woman is your mother," John squeaked. "Is she?"  
He contemplated his answer: Should he tell the truth or lie? He choose the latter: "No."  
"John, are you okay?" Sarah asked upon racing into the room, immediately positioning herself between the two men and her son, ready to attack the first who would dare to even look at him. "Cameron?!"  
"Yes?" Cameron asked while she appeared in the door opening.  
"Get these two the hell out of my house," Sarah ordered. "Did Derek hurt you?" She asked concerned when she patted her son down to check for injuries.  
"What?" John mumbled tearfully, shocked beyond words. "No," he answered firmly.  
"I guess you've finally outstayed your welcome," he said with a crooked grin while Cameron grabbed Derek roughly by the upper arm.  
"So did you!" Derek yelled, trying to yank himself free. "You're lucky that she has me in a vice grip!"  
"Want to put that theory to the test?" He challenged amused. "You get to punch me once, I get to punch you once and to even things out I won't even use my good arm."

She tenderly played with locks of his tousled hair while he lay curled up against her with his head in her lap. Whatever had happened two days ago, it had changed him. It had changed him beyond recognition.  
Whispers in the tunnels told of a monster, unleashed. A monster that had destroyed the city of Haven. She didn't have to ask him to know what, or better, who the monster had been.  
After he had returned and had fallen ill, she had cleaned him up and tended to his wounds. He had turned away from her when she had reached out to him after yet another violent night terror, tormenting him in his short sleeps.  
He had been the monster, unleashed. He had been the destroyer of Haven, and in return Haven had destroyed him. She remembered how heartbroken he had been after returning home from Century the first time, when Skynet had turned him into an Undertaker. Mercy kills had eaten away at his soul.  
His hair slid through her fingers. She wanted to help him, but at the same time she knew that no one could help him face and defeat the demons he was facing now. She wanted to make everything better, but she knew that she couldn't.  
"Damn you, John," she whispered while he clutched at her arms again as if to hold on for dear life.

* * *

* Electric cattle prod


	11. Chapter 10: An Offer You Cannot Refuse

**Chapter 10: An Offer You Cannot Refuse**

"TJ! Time to get up!"  
Slowly he opened his eyes and stared at the white ceiling for a moment or two. Today he didn't feel like getting up early. Today he didn't want to focus on his future. Today was the eighth anniversary of his mother's death. And with each passing year, this day became harder and harder on him.  
"TJ!" His father called impatiently.  
"I'm up, dad!" He called back while he looked at the photo of his mother on his bedside table.  
It didn't help his state of mind that his father was slavering over his new girlfriend. He had tried to keep an open mind about Catherine, but it was clear from the start that she was a cold and distant woman. Cold in every way.  
He missed his mother so much. After stretching himself one more time, he sat up and looked at the computer on his desk. He had built it himself, saving his allowance for parts. Why couldn't his father understand his interest in computer technology? If there was something boring, it was biochemistry. He could know as the son of the most popular biochemistry professor at UCLA.  
Why had his father never made an effort to understand him, to get into his hobbies so they would have something to talk about? Instead his father was always looking down at him, criticizing his interests and hobbies. It hadn't helped that he had been caught hacking a few times. The police showing up on his father's doorstep to arrest him was a dent in his father's public appearance.  
He had explained his father the difference between a hacker and a cracker on numerous occasions but it had never stuck. It was a sport to him, to see if he could do it. But he had never destroyed anything. Not that that mattered to his father.  
His mother would have understood. He was sure of that. She had been the one to feed his interest in computers. She had been the one to give him his first computer. She had been the one to tell him of a futuristic world in which the computers reigned.  
"TJ!" His father sounded even more impatient than the first two times.  
He jumped to his feet, searched though his clothes on the floor and picked out the cleanest outfit. It didn't matter to him that they didn't match, and it would only give his father more reason to criticize him.  
After breakfast he would have to call his father's girlfriend and tell her that he would accept the internship, albeit under protest. Nevertheless he knew that he could never make enough money to pay for his education if he would turn down her offer. It was a compromise he had to make to secure his future.

"Ms. Weaver, I have a Tyler Devlin on the line for you," the secretary said over the intercom.  
"Put him through," Catherine said coolly while she switched the speaker on.  
"Ms. Weaver, I don't know if you remember me," a young man's voice echoed through her office.  
He sounded so hesitant. Humans were strange creatures.  
"Of course, I do. I was expecting your call," she said mimicking reassurance into her voice. "Did you give my offer any consideration?"  
"That's why I am calling," he paused. "I gave it some more thought."  
Another pause.  
"And?" She asked encouragingly.  
"I talked it over with my dad," he sighed. "If it's still possible, I'd like to take it."  
"Excellent, young Mr. Devlin."  
She listened to his breathing on the other side of the line. He was pausing, trying to collect his thoughts before asking the questions she knew he would ask. This one was different from the last one. If she could make this young Tyler Devlin see that the machines were the future, they would gain a great ally and they would deal a severe blow to the Human Resistance.  
Keeping him safe was one of her priority mission directives: without meeting the Connors and with her guidance, he would become the ultimate infiltrator for Skynet.

"Didn't you sign a piece of paper stating otherwise?" It kept echoing in her mind. He had been very upset when he had said it. Yet it had cut through her heart and soul.  
She had made a mistake back then. Drugged up, beaten down, she had signed that piece of paper that had given up her right as a mother to him. If she had been in her right mind, she would never ever have signed it.  
Her stay at Pescadero had had its benefits: she had been able to be herself, to be Sarah Connor instead of someone else. She had been given a chance to express the things that had eaten away at her on the outside. Nevertheless directly opposing to it had been the mockery and the conditioning. A punching bag when she didn't want to cooperate, the punch line of staff jokes when she went on a rant about Judgment Day. Despite her not being taken seriously, she had gotten some rest for her tormented soul.  
Everything she had ever done had been for her son. Everything, with the exception of signing him away. Three seconds. Three goddamn seconds had been all it had taken to make the biggest mistake of her life. She swallowed down the lump that was forming in her throat.  
Sarah Jeanette Connor would have cried. Sarah Connor would not. She brushed an unruly lock of hair from her eyes and looked up at the rooftop. He was there, watching them. Why was he here? Why wasn't it enough to have Cameron guard her son? Why did future John deem it necessary to send another one of his best fighters back?  
So many questions, so very few answers. She could go and talk to him, demand answers one way or another, but she already knew it would not work like that. He was hardened by years of war. He would rather die than ever give up the truth.

A faint noise just a few feet behind him: "How's the kid?" He asked with sincere curiosity, not taking his eyes off of the house.  
He knew that she had tried to sneak up on him but he had grown accustomed to hearing every sound, no matter how insignificant, he had heard her.  
"How did you know it was me? And not Derek coming to throw you off the roof?" Sarah asked, unable to hide her surprise.  
"Derek won't come near me. He knows that the odds are against him. Besides I know your walk so it was easy," he answered, smiling faintly.  
"I wish you'd stop doing that," she heaved a deeply annoyed sigh.  
"Doing what?"  
"Say things like that... Pretending to know me when you don't," she answered.  
"How's the kid?" He repeated his initial question.  
"In a rare mood. One moment he's joking and teasing me, the next he's defying me. Instable."  
He looked at her from the corners of his eyes now that she had come to stand next to him: "The kid's just in shock."  
"No, it's about more than that. I made a huge mistake a few years ago. The mistake of a lifetime… He found out a while ago and just now he threw it back in my face."  
"So? People are flawed. They make mistakes. We're human, we make mistakes… I know I've made a few in my life."  
An not all too unpleasant silence ensued, only to broken when she asked: "Have you ever made a mistake so bad of which you know you will regret it the rest of your life?"  
"Yes, I did," he whispered. "A couple of times.  
"What did you do?"  
"Why would you want to know?" He grumbled while he squinted a little when he saw a car approach.  
He missed his gear, his little gadgets that had made life out on the battlefield so much easier.  
"I don't know. Maybe yours is worse than mine and I'd feel a little better," she grinned for a second or two.  
"I know it looks grim now but John will forgive you, Sarah. It'll take him a while to realize it but he will understand why you signed that those papers. That you hadn't given up on him. That you only did it with his best interest at heart."  
From the corners of his eyes he could see that she had been caught off guard by what he had just said, but he wasn't here to play nice or consider others. He could see the anger flare to life in her green eyes, turning into a full blown inferno in a few seconds; she was going to let him have it now.

John wiped the tears from his eyes with the palms of his hands. It had just slipped him, because he was hurting and needed to lash out. His uncle had gone completely crazy after he had only asked him about Devlin, Baxter and MedCom. His mother had been the easiest victim to share in his hurt. That was why he had said: he wanted someone else to suffer in the way he was suffering.  
For the first time in his life, he began to understand how lonely he actually was. A loneliness not uncommon to his mother, who had chosen for a life on the run while trying to stop Skynet and Judgement Day. The first Judgment Day, to happen on August 29th, 1997, had come and gone, and he had started to believe that they had averted the terrible future that lay in waiting for the world. She had tried to settle down, tried to live a normal life, but she had been too restless, too suspicious of anything out of the ordinary.  
He had truly believed that with Charley she would have had a chance at a normal life. He wanted a normal life, not a life ruled by machines and the future. He had never asked for the honor of becoming General John Connor, warrior-prophet. Just like his mother had never asked for the honor becoming the mother of the future. It would just happen. It had just happened.  
Lashing out had only made him feel better for about three seconds. Three seconds. "Because about three seconds after I signed that paper, I knew I couldn't live with it." Maybe the law said that she was no longer his mother, but his heart told him otherwise.  
She could be a cold and distant woman, unable to reveal her real emotions. Or should that be unwilling? She was tougher than nuclear nails, teaching herself, teaching him.  
Nevertheless his life was nothing like the life of an ordinary teenage boy. Prepared for the world and the future to come from the moment he was old enough to learn and understand. He couldn't help but feel the pangs of jealousy when watching his classmates, knowing they did not know what was coming, knowing they lead insignificant lives filled with teenage melodrama.  
He rose to his feet and sauntered over to the window, his eyes drawn up to the two figures out on the rooftop of the house across the street. It looked like his mother had decided to use Devlin as the one to take the blame for his screw-up.  
Knowing his mother's short-temperedness, it would be minutes before she would switch to using Devlin as a punching bag. From what he could see, the man was bracing himself for the storm to come. It was if his mother's growing rage did not phase him, instead his posture only added fuel to the fire. Was Devlin not only dangerous but absolutely crazy as well?

Tyler remained silent, letting the storm of words pass. Hurricane Connor, nothing he had not experienced before. Even as lovers, she had been perfectly capable of ripping him a new one almost every day. He knew that she needed to get this out of her system. If she didn't let out, it would bottle up and eat away at her until she would completely snap. John had been so very stupid by making that one remark out of spiteful rebellion, but he would come to his senses and see that his mother had not done it to hurt him, but that she was made to believe that she was protecting him instead.  
"Can you at least look at me when I'm yelling at you?!" Sarah seethed furiously.  
Slowly he turned towards her but he looked over her head, at something in the distance. Hurricane Connor had far from passed and only intensified when she noticed that he was still not looking at her. It could very well prove to be the last straw. He closed his eyes for a moment and braced himself for the things to come. She hated the idea of being ignored and would resort to violence to get her point across, to make him listen.  
He was listening. He always listened when she spoke or yelled. And he had never forgotten. He wasn't ignoring. He could never ignore her. However he needed to guard himself against her. They had a long history of which she knew nothing yet, and that was always so present in his mind. They had been mentor and student, friends, best friends, lovers, wife and husband. It was not her, not yet. And it would never be him again.  
He couldn't let his guard down, needing to shield his heart from her, and yet a strange current ran through his veins and reached his heart when he looked at her for a split second. Unable to place it, he dismissed it. Whatever happened he could not afford to make the same mistakes all over again.


End file.
